A fountain sealed

NOTE

This book is published in England under the
title of Valerie Upton.

OP CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES

A FOUNTAIN SEALED

BY
ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK

(Mrs. Basil de S61incourt)

Author of ' The Little French Girl, ' ' Franklin Winslow Kane,'
' Tante, ' etc.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
$vess Cambrfojje

COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Vl)t Bfbtrette prt«8

CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED

2132685

A FOUNTAIN SEALED

HREE people were sitting in a small
drawing-room, the windows of which
looked out upon a wintry Boston street.
It was a room rather empty and un-
decorated, but the idea of austerity was
banished by a temperature so nearly tropical. There
were rows of books on white shelves, a pale Dona-
tello cast on the wall, and two fine bronze vases filled
with roses on the mantelpiece. Over the roses hung
a portrait in oils, very sleek and very accurate, of
a commanding old gentleman in uniform, painted
by a well-known German painter, and all about the
room were photographs of young women, most of
them young mothers, with smooth heads and earnest
faces, holding babies. Outside, the snow was heaped
high along the pavements and thickly ridged the
roofs and lintels. After the blizzard the sun was
shining and all the white glittered. The national
colors, to a patriotic imagination, were pleasingly

3

4 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

represented by the red, white and blue of the brick
houses, the snow, and the vivid sky above.

The three people who talked, with many intimate
pauses of silence, were all Bostonians, though of
widely different types. The hostess, sitting in an
easy chair and engaged with some sewing, was a
girl of about twenty-six. She wore a brown skirt of
an ugly cut and shade and a white silk shirt,
adorned with a high linen collar, a brown tie and an
old-fashioned gold watch-chain. Her forehead was
too large, her nose too short; but her lips were full
and pleasant and when she smiled she showed
charming teeth. The black-rimmed glasses she wore
emphasized the clearness and candor of her eyes.
Her thick, fair hair was firmly fastened in a group
of knobs down the back of her head. There was an
element of the grotesque in her appearance and in
her careful, clumsy movements, yet, with it, a
quality almost graceful, that suggested homely and
wholesome analogies,— freshly-baked bread; fair,
sweet linen; the safety and content of evening fire
sides. This was Mary Colton.

The girl who sat near the window, her furs
thrown back from her shoulders, a huge muff dan
gling from her hand, was a few years younger
and exceedingly pretty. Her skin was unusually
white, her hair unusually black, her velvety eyes
unusually large and dark. In her attitude, loung
ing, graceful, indifferent, in her delicate face,
the straight, sulky brows, the coldly closed lips, the
coldly observant eyes, a sort of permanent discon
tent was expressed, as though she could find, neither

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 5

in herself nor in the world, any adequate satisfac
tion. This was Rose Packer.

The other guest, sitting sidewise on a stiff chair, his
hand hanging over the back, his long legs crossed,
was a young man, graceful, lean and shabby. He
was clean-shaven, with brown skin and golden hair,
an unruly lock lying athwart his forehead. His
face, intent, alert, was veiled in an indolent non
chalance. He looked earnest, yet capricious, staunch,
yet sensitive, and one felt that, conscious of these
weaknesses, he tried to master or to hide them.

These three had known one another since child
hood. Jack's family was old and rich; Mary's old
and poor; Rose Packer's new and of fantastic
wealth. Rose was a young woman of fashion and
her whole aspect seemed to repudiate any closeness
of tie between herself and Mary, who passed her
time in caring for General Colton, her invalid father,
attending committees, and, as a diversion, going to
"sewing-circles" and symphony concerts; but she
was fonder of Mary than of any one else in the
world. Rose, who had, as it were, been brought
up all over the world, divided her time now between
two continents and quaintly diversified her dancing,
hunting, yachting existence by the arduous study
of biology. Jack, in appearance more ambiguous
than either, looked neither useful nor ornamental;
but, in point of fact, he was a much occupied per
son. He painted very seriously, was something of a
scholar and devoted much of his time and most of
his large fortune to intricate benevolences. His
shabby clothes were assumed, like the air of indo-

8 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

lence ; his wealth irked him and, full of a democratic
transcendentalism, he longed to efface all the signs
that separated him from the average toiler. While
Rose was quite ignorant of her own country west
of the Atlantic seaboard, Jack had wandered North,
South, West. As for Mary, she had hardly left
Boston in her life, except to go to the Massachusetts
coast in summer and to pay a rare visit now and
then to New York. It was of such a visit that she
had been talking to them and of the friend who,
since her own return home only a few days before,
had suffered a sudden bereavement in the death of
her father. Jack Pennington, also a near friend of
Imogen Upton's, had just come from New York,
where he had been with her during the mournful
ceremonies of death, and Mary Colton, after a little
pause, had said, "I suppose she was very wonderful
through it all."

"She bore up very well," said Jack Pennington.
"There would never be anything selfish in her
grief."

"Never. And when one thinks what a grief it is.
She is wonderful, ' ' said Mary.

"You think every one wonderful, Molly," Rose
Packer remarked, not at all aggressively, but with
her air of quiet ill-temper.

"Mary's enthusiasm has hit the mark this time,"
said Pennington, casting a glance more scrutinizing
than severe upon the girl.

''I really can't see it. Of course Imogen Upton
is pretty— remarkably pretty— though I 've always

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 7

thought her nose too small ; and she is certainly
clever ; but why should she be called wonderful ? ' '

"I think it is her goodness, Rose," said Mary,
with an air of gentle willingness to explain. "It 's
her radiant goodness. I know that Imogen has mas
tered philosophies, literatures, sciences — in so far as
a young and very busy girl can master them, and
that very wise men are glad to talk to her ; but it 's
not of that one thinks— nor of her great beauty,
either. Both seem taken up, absorbed in-that selfless
ness, that loving-kindness, that 's like a higher kind
of cleverness — almost like a genius."

"She 's not nearly so good as you are, Molly.
And after all, what does she do, anyway ? ' '

Mary kept her look of leniency, as if over the
half -playful naughtinesses of a child. "She organ
izes and supports all sorts of charities, all sorts of
reforms; she is the wisest, sweetest of hostesses; she
takes care of her brother; she took care of her
father;— she takes care of anybody who is in need
or unhappy. ' '

"Was Mr. Upton so unhappy? He certainly
looked gloomy;— I hardly knew him; Eddy, how
ever, I do know, very well; he is n't in the least
unhappy. He does n't need help."

"I think we all need help, dear. As for Mr.
Upton, — you know," Mary spoke very gravely now,
"you know about Mrs. Upton."

"Of course I do, and what 's better, I know her
herself a little. Elle est charmeuse."

1 ' I have never seen her, ' ' said Mary, ' ' but I don 't

8 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

understand how you can call a frivolous and heart
less woman, who practically deserted her husband
and children, channelise;— but perhaps that is all
that one can call her."

"I like frivolous people," said Rose, ''and most
women would have deserted Mr. Upton, if what I 've
heard of him was true."

"What have you heard of himr"

"That he was a bombastic prig."

At this Mary's pale cheek colored. "Try to re
member, Rose, that he died only a week ago."

' ' Oh, he may be different now, of course. ' '

"I can't bear to hear you speak so, Rose. I did
know him. I saw a great deal of him during this
last year. He was a very big person indeed. ' '

"Of course I 'm a pig to talk like this, if you
really liked him, Molly."

But Mary was not to be turned aside by such
ambiguous apology. "You see, you don't know,
Rose. The pleasure-seeking, worldly people among
whom you live could hardly understand a man like
Mr. Upton. Simply what he did for civic reform,—
worked himself to death over it. And his books on
ethics, politics. It is n't a question of my liking
him. I don't know that I ever thought of my feel
ing for him in those terms. It was reverence, rather,
and gratitude for his being what he was."

"Well, dear, I do remember hearing men, and not
worldly men, as you call them, either, say that his
work for civic reform amounted to very little and
that his books were thin and unoriginal. As for

that community place he founded at, where was it?
-Clackville ? He meddled that out of life. ' '

"He may have been Utopian, he may have been
in some ways ineffectual ; but he was a good man, a
wonderful, yesr Rose, a wonderful man."

"And do you think that Molly has hit the mark
in this, too?" Rose asked, turning her eyes on Pen-
nington. He had been listening with an air of light
inattention and now he answered tersely, as if con
quering some inner reluctance by over-emphasis,
"Could n't abide him."

Rose laughed out, though with some surprise in
her triumph; and Mary, redder than before, re
joined in a low voice, "I did n't expect you, Jack,
to let personal tastes interfere with fair judgment."

"Oh, I 'm not judging him," said Jack.

"But do you feel with me," said Rose, "that it 's
no wonder that Mrs. Upton left him."

"Not in the least," Pennington replied, glad, evi
dently, to make clear his disagreement. "I don't
know of any reason that Mrs. Upton had for de
serting not only her husband but her children."

"But have they been left? Is n't it merely that
they prefer to stay ? ' '

"Prefer to live in their own country? among
their own people ? Certainly."

"But she spends part of every year with them.
There was never any open breach. ' '

"Everybody knew that she would not live with
her husband and everybody knew why," Mary said.
"It has nearly broken Imogen's heart. She left him

10 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

because he would n 't lead the kind of life she wanted
to lead— the kind of life she leads in England— one
of mere pleasure and self-indulgent ease. She
has n 't the faintest conception of duty or of patriot
ism. She could n't help her husband in any way,
and she would n't let him help her. All she cares
for is fashion, admiration and pretty clothes."

"Stuff and nonsense, my dear ! She does n't think
one bit more about her clothes than Imogen does.
It requires more thought to look like a saint in
velvet than to go to the best dressmaker and order
a trousseau. I wonder how long it took Imogen to
find out that way of doing her hair."

"Rose!— I must beg of you— I love her."

"But I 'm saying nothing against her!"

"When I think of what she is suffering now, what
you say sounds cruelly irreverent. Jack, I know,
feels as I do."

"Yes, he does," said the young man. He got up
now and stood, very tall, in the middle of the room
looking down at Mary. "I must be off. I '11 bring
you those books to-morrow afternoon — though I
don't see much good in your reading d'Annunzio."

"Why, if you do, Jack?" said Mary, with some
wonder. And the degree of intimate equality in the
relations of these young people may be gaged by the
fact that he appeared to receive her rejoinder as
conclusive.

"Well, he 's interesting, of course, and if one
wants to understand modern decadence in an all-
round way— ' '

"I want to understand everything," said Mary.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 11

"And please bring your best Italian dictionary
with them."

"Before you go, Jack," said Rose, "pray shut the
register. It 's quite stifling in here."

' ' Far too hot, ' ' said Jack, showing his impartiality
of spirit by his seconding of Rose's complaint, for
it was evident she had much displeased him. "I 've
often told you, Mary, how bad it was for you.
That 's why you are so pale. ' '

"I 'm so sorry. Have you been feeling it much?
Leave the door into the hall open."

"And do cast one glance, if only of disapproba
tion, upon me, Jack, ' ' Rose pleaded in mock distress.

"You are a very amusing child, Rose, sometimes,"
was Pennington's only answer.

"He 's evidently very cross with me," said Rose,
when he was gone. "While you are not — you who
have every right to be, angelic Molly. ' '

"I hope you did n't realize, Rose, how you were
hurting him."

"I?" Rose opened wide eyes. "How, pray?"

"Don't you know that he is devoted to Imogen
Upton?"

"Why, who is n't devoted to her, except wicked
me?"

"Devoted in particular— in love with her, I
think, ' ' said Mary.

Rose's face took on a more acutely discontented
look, after the pause in which she seemed, though un-
repentantly, to acquiesce in a conviction of inepti
tude. " Really in love with her ?"

"I think so; I hope so."

12 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"How foolish of him," said Rose. Mary, at this,
rested a gaze so long and so reproachful upon her
that the discontent gave way to an affectionate com
punction. "The truth is, Mary, that I 'm jealous;
I 'm petty; I 'm horrid. I don't like sharing you.
I like you to like me most, and not to find other
people wonderful."

"If you own that you are naughty, Rose, dear,
and that you try hard to be naughtier than you
really are, I can't be angry with you. But it does
hurt me, for your own sake, to see you— really
malicious, dear."

"Oh, dear! Am I that?"

"Really you are."

"Because I called Imogen Upton a saint in vel
vet?— and like her mother so much, much more?"

"Yes, because of that— and all the rest. As for
jealousy, one does n't love people more because they
are wonderful. One is glad of them and one longs
to share them. It 's one of my dearest hopes that
you may come to care for Imogen as I do— and as
Jack does."

Rose listened, her head bent forward, her eyes,
ambiguous in their half-ironic, half-tender, mean
ing, on her friend; but she only said, "I shall re
main in love with you, Mary." She did n't say
again, though she was thinking it, that Jack was
very foolish.

II

ARLING, darling Mother :

"I know too well what you have
been feeling since the cable reached
you ; and first of all I want to help you
to bear it by telling you at once that you
could not have reached him in time. You must not
reproach yourself for that.

"I am shattered by this long day. Father died
early this morning, but I must hold what strength
I have, firmly, for you, and tell you all that you
will want to hear. He would have wished that ; you
know how he felt about a selfish yielding to grief.

"He seemed quite well until the beginning of this
week— five days ago— but he was never strong; the
long struggle that life must always mean to those
who face life as he did, wore on him more and
more ; for others ' sakes he often assumed a buoyancy
of manner that, I am sure,— one feels these things by
intuition of those one loves— often hid suffering and
intense weariness. It was just a case of the sword
wearing out the scabbard. A case of, 'Yes, uphill to
the very end.' I know that you did not guess how
fragile the scabbard had become, and you must not
reproach yourself, darling, for that either. We are

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14 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

hardly masters of the intuitions that warn us of
these things. Death teaches us so much, and, be
side him, looking at his quiet face, so wonderful in
its peace and triumph, I have learned many lessons.
He has seemed to teach me, in his silence, the gentler,
deeper sympathy with temperament. You could n't
help it, darling, I seem to understand that more
and more. You were n't at the place, so to speak,
where he could help you. Oh, I wrant to be so tender
with you, my mother,— and to help you to wise,
strong tenderness toward yourself.

"On Tuesday he worked, as usual, all morning;
he had thrown himself heart and soul, as you know,
into our great fight with civic corruption — what a
worker he was, what a fighter ! He was so won
derful at lunch, I remember. I had my dear little
Mary Colton with me and he held us both spellbound,
talking, with all his enthusiasm and ardor, of poli
tics, art, life and the living of life. Mary said,
when she left me that day, that to know him had
been one of the greatest things in her experience.
In the afternoon he went to a committee meeting at
the Citizens ' Union. It was bitterly cold and though
I begged him to be selfish for once and take a cab,
he would n't — you remember his Spartan contempt
of costly comforts — and I can see him now, going
down the steps, smiling, shaking his head, waving
his hand, and saying with that half-sad, half-quiz
zical smile of his, ' Plenty of people who need bread
a good deal more than I need cabs, little daughter.'
So, in the icy wind, he walked to the cable-car, with
its over-heated atmosphere. He got back late, only

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 15

in time to dress for dinner. Several interesting men
came and we had a splendid evening, really won
derful talk, constructive talk, vitalizing, inspiring,
of the world and the work to be done for it. I
noticed that father seemed flushed, but thought it
merely the interest of the discussion. He did not
come down to breakfast next morning and when I
went to him I found him very feverish. He con
fessed then that he had caught a bad chill the day
before. I sent for the doctor at once, and for a little
while had no anxiety. But the fever became higher
and higher and that night the doctor said that it was
pneumonia.

"Dearest, dearest mother, these last days are still
too much with me for me to feel able to make you
see them clearly. It is all a tragic confusion in my
mind. Everything that could be done was done to
save him. He had nurses and consultations— all the
aids of science and love. I wired for Eddy at once,
and dear Jack Pennington was with me, too, so help
ful with his deep sympathy and friendship. I
needed help, mother, for it was like having my heart
torn from me to see him go. He was very calm and
brave, though I am sure he knew, and once, when I
sat beside him, just put out his hand to mine and
said: 'Don't grieve overmuch, little daughter; I
trust you to turn all your sorrow to noble uses. ' He
spoke only once of you, dear mother, but then it was
to say: 'Tell her— I forgive. Tell her not to re
proach herself.' And then— it was the saddest,
sweetest summing up, and it will comfort you — 'She
was like a child.' At the end he simply went —

16 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

sleeping, unconscious. Oh, mother, mother !— for
give these tears, I am weak. . . . He lies now, up
stairs, looking so beautiful— like that boyish por
trait, you remember, with the uplifted, solemn gaze
— only deeper, more peaceful and without the ar
dor. . . .

"Darling mother, don't bother a bit a,bout me.
Eddy and Jack will help me in everything, all our
friends are wonderful to us.— Day after to-morrow
we are to carry him to his rest. — After that, when I
feel a little stronger, I will write again. Eddy goes
to you directly after the funeral. If you need me,
cable for me at once. I have many ties and many
claims here, but I will leave them all to spend the
winter with you, if you need me. For you may not
feel that you care to come to us, and perhaps it will
be easier for you to bear it over there, where you
have so many friends and have made your life. So
if I can be of any help, any comfort, don't hesitate,
mother dear.

"And— oh, I want to say it so lovingly, my arms
around you— don't fear that I have any hardness
in my heart toward you. I loved him— with all my
soul— as you know; but if, sometimes, seeing his
patient pain, I have judged you, perhaps, with
youth's over-severity,— all that is gone now. I only
feel our human weakness, our human need, our
human sorrow. Remember, darling, that our very
faults, our very mistakes, are the things that may
help us to grow higher. Don't sink into a useless
self-reproach. 'Turn your sorrow to noble uses.'
Use the past to light you to the future. Build on

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 17

the ruins, dear one. You have Eddy and me to live
for, and we love you. God bless you, my darling
mother.

' ' IMOGEN. ' '

This letter, written in a large, graceful and very
legible hand, was being read for the third time by
the bereaved wife as she sat in the drawing-room of
a small house in Surrey on a cold November even
ing. The room was one of the most finished com
fort, comfort its main intention, but so thor
oughly attained that beauty had resulted as if un
consciously. The tea-table, the fire, the wide win
dows, their chintz curtains now drawn, were the
points around which the room had so delightfully
arranged itself. It was a room a trifle overcrowded,
but one would n't have wanted anything taken
away, the graceful confusion, on a background of
almost austere order, gave the happiest sense of
adaptability to a variety of human needs and whims.
Mrs. Upton had finished her own tea, but the flame
still burned in waiting under the silver urn; books
and reviews lay in reach of a lazy hand; lamps,
candle-light and flowers made a soft radiance; a
small griffon dozed before the fire. The decoration
of the room consisted mainly in French engravings
from Watteau and Chardin, in one or two fine black
lacquer cabinets and in a number of jars and vases
of Chinese porcelain, some standing on the floor and
some on shelves, the neutral-tinted walls a back
ground to their bright, delicate colors.

Mrs. Upton was an appropriate center to so much

18 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

ease and beauty. In deep black though she was,
her still girlish figure stretched out in a low chair,
her knees crossed, one foot held to the fire, she did
not seem to express woe or the poignancy of regret.
The delicate appointments of her dress, the fresh
ness of her skin, her eyes, bright and unfatigued,
suggested nothing less than a widow plunged in re
morseful grief. Her eyes, indeed, were thoughtful,
her lips, as she read her daughter's communication,
grave, but there was much discrepancy between her
own aspect and the letter's tone, and, letting it drop
at last, she seemed herself aware of it, sighing, glanc
ing about her at the Chinese porcelain, the tea-table,
the dozing dog. She did n't look stricken, nor did
she feel so. The first fact only vaguely crossed her
mind ; the latter stayed and her face became graver,
sadder, in contemplating it. She contemplated it for
a long time, going over a retrospect in which her
dead husband's figure and her own were seen, stead
ily, sadly, but without severity for either.

Since the shock of the announcement, conveyed in
a long, tender cable over a week ago, she had had no
time, as it were, to cast up these accounts with the
past. Her mind had known only a confused pain,
a confused pity, for herself and for the man whom
she once had loved. The death, so long ago, of that
young love seemed more with her than her husband's
death, which took on the visionary, picture aspect
of any tragedy seen from a distance, not lived
through. But now, in this long, firelit leisure, that
was the final summing of it all. She was grave,
she was sad ; but she could feel no severity for her-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 19

self, and, long ago, she had ceased to feel any for
poor Everard. They had been greatly mistaken in
fancying themselves made for each other, two crea
tures could hardly have been less so; but Everard
had been a good man and she, — she was a harmless
woman. Both of them had meant well. Of course
Everard had always, and for everything, meant a great
deal more than she, in the sense of an intentional
shaping of courses. She had always owned that, had
always given his intentions full credit; only, what
he had meant had bored her— she could not find it
in herself now to fix on any more self -exonerating
term. After the first perplexed and painful years
of adjustment to fundamental disappointment she
had at last seen the facts clearly and not at all un
kindly, and it seemed to her that, as far as her
husband went, she had made the best of them. It
was rather odious of her, no doubt, to think it now,
but it seemed the truth, and, seen in its light, poor
little Imogen's exhortations and consolations were
misplaced. Once or twice in reading the letter she
had felt an inclination to smile, an inclination that
had swiftly passed into compunction and self-re
proach.

Yes, there it was ; she could find very little of self-
reproach within her in regard to her husband; but
in regard to Imogen her conscience was not easy, and
as her thoughts passed to her, her face grew still
sadder and still graver. She saw Imogen, in the long
retrospect, — it was always Imogen, Eddy had never
counted as a problem— first as a child whom she
could take abroad with her for French, German,

20 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Italian educational experiences; then as a young
girl, very determined to form her own character,
and sure, with her father to second her assurance,
that boarding-school was the proper place to form it.
Eddy was also at school, and Mrs. Upton, with the
alternative of flight or an unbroken tete-a-tete with
her husband before her, chose the former. There
was no breach, no crash ; any such disturbances had
taken place long before ; she simply slid away, and
her prolonged absences seemed symbols of funda
mental and long recognized divisions. She came
home for the children's holidays; built, indeed, the
little house among the Vermont hills, so that she
might, as it were, be her husband's hostess there.
She hoped, through the ambiguous years, for Imo
gen's young- womanhood ; looking forward to taking
her place beside her when the time came for her first
steps in the world. But here, again, Imogen's clear-
cut choice interfered. Imogen considered girlish
frivolities a foolish waste of time; she would take
her place in the world when she was fully equipped
for the encounter; she was not yet equipped to her
liking and she declared herself resolved on a college
course.

Imogen had been out of college for three years
now, but the routine of Mrs. Upton's life was un
changed. The rut had been made too deep for her
to climb out of it. It had become impossible to
think of reentering her husband's home as a per
manent part of it. Eddy was constantly with her
in England in the intervals of his undergraduate
life ; but how urge upon Imogen more frequent meet-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 21

ings when her absence would leave the father deso
late ? The summers had come to be their only times
of reunion and Mrs. Upton had more and more come
to look forward to them with an inward tremor of
uncertainty and discomfort. For, under everything,
above everything, was the fact, and she felt herself
now to be looking it hard in the face, that Imogen
had always, obviously, emphatically, been fondest
of her father. It had been from the child's earliest
days, this more than fondness, this placid partizan-
ship. In looking back it seemed to her that Imogen
had always disapproved of her, had always shown
her disapproval, gently, even tenderly, but with a
sad firmness. Her liberation from her husband's
standard was all very well; she cared nothing for
Imogen 's standard either, in so far as it was an echo,
a reflection ; only, for her daughter not to care for
her, to disapprove of her, to be willing that she
should go out of her life,— there was the rub; and
the fact that she should be considering it over a
tea-table in Surrey while Imogen was battling with
all the somber accompaniments of grief in New
York, challenged her not to deny some essential de
fect in her own maternity. She was an honest
woman, and after her hour of thought she could not
deny it, though she could not see clearly where it
lay; but the recognition was but a step to the own
ing that she must try to right herself. And at this
point,— she had drawn a deep breath over it, straight
ening herself in her chair,— her friends came in
from their drive and put an end to her solitude.
For the first years of her semi-detached life Mrs.

22 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Upton had been as gay as a very decorous young
grass-widow can be. Her whole existence, until her
marriage, which had dropped, or lifted, her to
graver levels, had been passed among elaborate social
conditions, and wherever she might go she found the
protection of a recognized background. She had
multitudes of acquaintances and these surrounding
nebulae condensed, here and there, into the fixed
stars of friendship. Not that such condensations
were swift or frequent. Mrs. Upton was not easily
intimate. Her very graces, her very kindnesses, her
sympathy and sweetness, were, in a manner, out
posts about an inner citadel and one might for years
remain, hospitably entertained, yet kept at a dis
tance. But the stars, when they did form, were very
fixed. Of such were the two friends who now came
in eager for tea, after their nipping drive: Mrs.
Pakenham, English, mother of a large family, wife
of a hard- worked M.P. and landowner ; energetically
interested in hunting, philanthropy, books and peo
ple ; slender and vigorous, with a delicate, emaciated
face, weather-beaten to a pale, crisp red, her eyes
as blue as porcelain, her hair still gold, her smile of
the kindest, and Mrs. Wake, American, rosy, rather
stout, rather shabby, and extremely placid of mien.
Mrs. Pakenham, after her drive, was beautifully
tidy, furred as to shoulders and netted as to hair ;
Mrs. Wake was much disarranged and came in,
smiling patiently, while she put back the disheveled
locks from her brow. She was childless, a widow,
very poor; eking out her insufficient income by
novel-writing; unpopular novels that dealt, usually,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 23

with gloomy themes of monotonous and disappointed
lives. She was, herself, anything but gloomy.

She gave her friend, now, swift, short glances,
while, standing before her, her back to the fire, she
put her hair behind her ears. She had known
Valerie Upton from childhood, when they had both
been the indulged daughters of wealthy homes, and
through all the catastrophes and achievements of
their lives they had kept in close touch with each
other. Mrs. Wake's glances, now, were fond, but
slightly quizzical, perhaps slightly critical. They
took in her friend, her attitude, her beautifully
"done" hair, her fresh, sweet face, so little faded,
even her polished finger-nails, and they took in, very
unobtrusively, the American letter on her lap. It
was Mrs. Pakenham who spoke of the letter.

"You have heard, then, dear?"

"Yes, from Imogen."

Both had seen her stunned, undemonstrative pain
in the first days of the bereavement; the cables had
supplied all essential information. Her quiet, now,
seemed to intimate that the letter contained no har
rowing details.

"The poor child is well, I hope?"

' ' Yes, I think so ; she does n 't speak much of her
self ; she is very brave."

Mrs. Pakenham, a friend of more recent date, had
not known Mr. Upton, nor had she ever met Imogen.

"Eddy was with her, of course," said Mrs. Wake.

"Yes, and this young Mr. Pennington, who seems
to have become a great friend. May Smith and Julia
Halliwell, of course, must have helped her through

24 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

it all. She says that people are very kind." Mrs.
Upton spoke quietly. She did not offer to show the
letter.

"Jack Pennington. Imogen met him when she
went last year to Boston. You remember old Miss
Pennington, his great-aunt, Valerie."

"Very well. But this Jack I 've never met."

"He is, I hear, devoted to Imogen."

"So I infer."

"And the very nicest kind of young man, though
over-serious. ' '

"I inferred that, too/'

"And now," said Mrs. Wake, "Eddy will be here
on Saturday ; but what of Imogen ? ' '

"Imogen says that she will come over at once, if
I want her."

"Far the best plan. She will live with you here —
until she marries Mr. Pennington, or some other
devotee," said Mrs. Pakenham comfortably.

Mrs. Upton looked up at her. "No, I shall go to
her, until she marries Mr. Pennington or some other
devotee."

There was after this a slight pause, and it was
Mrs. Pakenham who broke it with undiminished
cheerfulness. "Perhaps, on the whole, that will be
best, for the present. Of course it 's a pity to have
to shut up your home, just as you are so nicely in
stalled for the winter. But, you must n't let her
delay, my dear, in getting married. You can't wait
over there indefinitely, you know."

"Ah, it 's just that that I must do," said Mrs.
Upton.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 25

There was, again, silence at this, perhaps over a
further sense of fitness, but in it Mrs. Pakenham's
eyes met Mrs. Wake's in a long interchange. Mrs.
Upton, in the event of Imogen "delaying," would
not stay ; that was what, plainly, it intimated.

"Of course," said Mrs. Pakenham, after some
moments of this silent acquiescence and silent skepti
cism, ' ' that will make it very evident why you did n 't
stay before."

"Not necessarily. Imogen has no one with her
now ; my preferences as to a home would naturally
go down before such an obvious duty."

"So that you will simply take up all the threads,
yours and hers ? ' '

"I shall try to."

"You think she '11 like that?" Mrs. Pakenham
inquired.

"Like what?" Mrs. Upton rather quickly asked.

' ' That you should take up her threads. Is n 't she
very self-reliant? Has n't her life, the odd situa
tion, made her so ? "

At this Mrs. Upton, her eyes on the fire, blushed ;
faintly, yet the deepening of color was evident, and
Mrs. Pakenham, leaning impulsively forward, put
her hand on hers, saying, "Dear Valerie, I don't
mean that you 're responsible!"

"But I am responsible." Mrs. Upton did not look
at her friend, though her hand closed gently on hers.

"For nothing with which you can reproach your
self, which you can even regret, then. It 's well,
altogether well, that a girl should be self-reliant and
have her own threads. ' '

26 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"Not well, though," said Mrs. Wake, folding the
much-entangled veil she had removed, "that a
daughter should get on so perfectly without her
mother. ' '

"Really, I don't know about that"— Mrs. Paken-
ham was eager in generous theories— "not well for
us poor mothers, perhaps, who find it difficult to be
lieve that we are such background creatures."

"Not well for the daughter," Mrs. Wake rejoined.
"In this case I think that Imogen has been more
harmed than Valerie."

"Harmed!" Mrs. P^kenham exclaimed, while
Valerie Upton's eyes remained fixed on the fire.
"How can she have been harmed? From all I hear
of her she is the pink of perfection."

"She is a good girl."

"You mean that she 's suffered?"

"No, I don't think that she has suffered."

Mrs. Wake was evidently determined to remain
enigmatical; but Valerie Upton quietly drew aside
her reserves. "That is the trouble, you think; she
hasn't."

"That is a symptom of the trouble. She does n't
suffer ; she judges. It 's very harmful for a young
girl to sit in judgment."

"But Valerie has seen her so much!" Mrs. Paken-
ham cried, a little shocked at the other's ruthless-
ness. "Three months of every year— almost. "

"Three months when they played hostess to each
other. It was really Valerie who was the guest in
the house when Imogen and her father were there.
The relation was never normal. Now that poor

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 27

Everard is gone, the necessary artificiality can
cease. Valerie can try her hand at being a mother,
not a guest. It will do both her and Imogen good. ' '
"That 's just the conclusion I had come to.
That 's just how I had been seeing it." The fresh
tea-pot was brought in at this juncture, and, as she
spoke, Valerie roused herself to measure in the tea
and pour on the boiling water. She showed them,
thus, more fully, the grace, the freshness, the look of
latent buoyancy that made her so young, that made
her, even now, in her black dress and with her
gravity, remind one of a flower, submerged, mo
mentarily, in deep water, its color hardly blurred,
its petals delicately crisp, its fragrance only need
ing air and sunlight to diffuse itself. For all the
youthfulness, a quality of indolent magic was about
her, a soft haze, as it were, woven of matured expe
rience, of detachment from youth's self-absorption,
of the observer's kindly, yet ironic, insight. Her
figure was supple; her nut-brown hair, splendidly
folded at the back of her head, was hardly touched
with white ; her quickly glancing, deliberately paus
ing, eyes were as clear, as pensive, as a child's, with
almost a child's candor of surprise in the upturning
of their lashes. A brunette duskiness in the rose of
lips and cheeks, in the black brows, in the fruit-
like softness of outline, was like a veil drawn across
and dimming the fairness that paled to a pearly
white at throat and temples. Her upper lip was
ever so faintly shadowed with a brunette penciling
of down, and three grains de beaute, like tiny patches
of velvet, seemed applied with a pretty coquetry, one

28 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

on her lip and two high on her cheek, where they
emphasized and lent a touch of the Japanese to her
smile. Even her physical aspect carried out the
analogy of something vivid and veiled. She was
clear as day, yet melting, merged, elusive, like the
night; and in her glance, in her voice, was that
mingled brightness and shadow. When she had
given them their tea she left her friends, taking her
toasted little dog, languid and yawning, under her
arm, and, at a sharp yelp from this petted individual,
his paw struck by the opening of the door, they
heard her exclaiming in contrition over him, "Dar
ling lamb! did his wicked mother hurt him!"

Mrs. Pakenham and Mrs. Wake sipped their tea
for some time in silence, and it was Mrs. Pakenham
who voiced at last the thought uppermost for both
of them, "I wonder how Sir Basil will take it."

' ' Everard 's death, you mean, or her going off ? "

"Both."

"It 's obvious, I think, that if he does n't follow
her at once it will only be because he thinks that
now his chance has come he will make it surer by
waiting."

"It 's rather odious of me to think about it at all,
I suppose," Mrs. Pakenham mused, "but one can't
help it, having seen it all ; having seen more than
either of them have, I 'm quite sure, poor, lovely
dears. ' '

"No, one certainly can't help it," Mrs. Wake ac
quiesced. "Though I, perhaps, should have been
too prudish to own to it just now — with poor Everard
hardly in his grave. But that 's the comfort of be-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 29

ing with a frank, unscrupulous person like you ; one
gets it all out and need take no responsibility. ' '

Mrs. Pakenham smiled over her friend's self -ex
posure and helped her to greater comfort with a
still more crude, ' ' It will be perfect, you know, if he
does succeed. I suppose there 's no doubt that he
will."

' ' I don 't know ; I really don 't know, ' ' Mrs. Wake
mused.

"One knows well enough that she 's tremendously
fond of him, — it 's just that that she has taken her
stand on so beautifully, so gracefully."

"Yes, so beautifully and so gracefully that while
one does know that, one can't know more— he least
of all. He, I 'm pretty sure, knows not a scrap
more. ' '

"But, after all, now that she 's free, that is
enough. ' '

"Yes— except— "

"Really, my dear, I see no exception. He is a
delightful creature, as sound, as strong, as true;
and if he is n't very clever, Valerie is far too clever
herself to mind that, far too clever not to care for
how much more than clever he is. ' '

"Oh, it 's not that she does n't care—'

"What is it, then, you carping, skeptical crea
ture? It 's all perfect. An uncongenial, tiresome
husband — and she need have no self-reproach about
him, either — finally out of the way; a reverential
adorer at hand; youth still theirs; money; a de
lightful place — what more could one ask?"

"Ah," Mrs. Wake sighed a little, "I don't know.

30 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

It 's not, perhaps, that one would ask more, but
less. It 's too pretty, too easy, too a propos; so
much so that it frightens me a little. Valerie has,
you see, made a mess of it. She has, you see,
spoiled her life, in that aspect of it. To mend it
now, so completely, to start fresh at— how old is
she? — at forty-six, it 's just a little glib. Somehow
one does n't get off so easily as that. One can't
start so happily at forty-six. Perhaps one is wiser
not to try. ' '

"Oh, nonsense, my dear! It 's very American,
that, you know, that picking of holes in excellent
material, furbishing up your consciences, running
after your motives as if you were ferrets in a rat-
hole. If all you have to say against it is that it 's
too perfect, too happy,— why, then I keep to my
own conviction. She '11 be peacefully married and
back among us in a year. ' '

Mrs. Wake seemed to acquiesce, yet still to have
her reserves. ' ' There 's Imogen, you know. Imogen
has to be counted with."

' ' Counted with ! Valerie, I hope, is clever enough
to manage that young person. It would be a little
too much if the daughter spoiled the end of her
life as the husband spoiled the beginning."

"You are a bit hard on Everard, you know, from
mere partizanship. Valerie was by no means a mis
used wife and his friends may well have thought
him a misused husband ; Imogen does, I 'in sure.
She has, perhaps, a right to feel that, as her father's
representative, her mother owes her something in
the way of atonement. ' '

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 31

"It does vex me, my dear, to have you argue like
that against your own convictions. It was all his
fault, — one only has to know her to be sure of it.
He made things unbearable for her. ' '

"It was hardly his fault. He could n't help be
ing unbearable."

"Well— certainly she could n't help it!" cried
Mrs. Pakenham, laughing as if this settled it. She
rose, putting her hands on the mantelpiece and
warming her foot preparatory to her departure ;
and, summing up her cheerful convictions, she
added: "I 'm sorry for the poor man, of course;
but, after all, he seems to have done very much
what he liked with his life. And I can't help being
very glad that he did n't succeed in quite spoiling
hers. Good luck to Sir Basil is what I say."

m

KS. UPTON was in the drawing-room
next morning when Sir Basil Threm-
don was announced. She had not seen
this old friend and neighbor since the
news of her bereavement had reached
her, and now, rising to meet him, a consciousness of
all that had changed for her, a consciousness, per
haps more keen, of all that had changed for him,
showed in a deepening of her color.

Sir Basil was a tall, spare, stalwart man of fifty,
the limpid innocence of his blue eyes contrasting
with his lean, aquiline countenance. His hair and
mustache were bleached by years to a light fawn-
color and his skin tanned by a hardy life to a deep
russet ; and these tints of fawn and russet predom
inated throughout his garments with a pleasing har
mony, so that in his rough tweeds and riding-gaiters
he seemed as much a product of the nature outside
as any bird or beast. The air of a delightfully
civilized rurality was upon him, an air of land
owning, law-dispensing, sporting efficiency ; and if,
in the fitness of his coloring, he made one think of
a fox or a pheasant, in character he suggested noth
ing so much as one of the deep-rooted oaks of his
own park. His very simplicity and uncomplexity of

32

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 33

consciousness was as fresh, as wholesome, as genially
encompassing, as full summer foliage. One rested
in his shade.

He was an inarticulate person and his eyes, now,
in their almost scared solicitude, spoke more of sym
pathy and tenderness than his halting tongue. He
ended by repeating a good many times that he hoped
she was n't too frightfully pulled down. Mrs. Upton
said that she was really feeling very well, though
conscious that her sincerity might somewhat bewilder
her friend in his conceptions of fitness, and they sat
down side by side on a small sofa near the window.

We have said that for the first years of her free
dom Mrs. Upton had been very gay. Of late years
the claims on her resources from the family across
the Atlantic had a good deal clipped her wings, and,
though she made a round of spring and of autumn
visits, she spent her time for the most part in her
little Surrey house, engaged desultorily in garden
ing, study, and the entertainment of the friend or
two always with her. She had not found it difficult
to fold her wings and find contentment in the more
nest-like environment. She had never been a woman
to seek, accepting only, happily, whatever gifts life
brought her; and it seemed as natural to her that
things should be taken as that things should be
given. But with the renouncement of more various
outlooks this autumnal quietness, too, had brought
its gift, discreet, delicate, a whispered sentence, as
it were, that one could only listen to blindfolded,
but that, once heard, gave one the knowledge of a

hidden treasure. Sir Basil had been one of the
e

84 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

reasons, the greatest reason, for her happiness in the
Surrey nest. It was since coming there to live that
she had grown to know him so well, with the slow-
developing, deep-rooted intimacy of country life.
The meadows and parks of Thremdon Hall encom
passed all about the heath where Valerie Upton's
cottage stood among its trees. They were Sir Basil's
woods that ran down to her garden walls and Sir
Basil's lanes that, at the back of the cottage, led up,
through the heather, to the little village, a mile or
so away. She had met Sir Basil before coming to
live there, once or twice in London, and once or
twice for week-ends at country-houses; but he was
not a person whom one came really to know in draw
ing-room conditions; indeed, at the country-houses
one hardly saw him except at breakfast and dinner ;
he was always hunting, golfing, or playing billiards,
and in the interludes to these occupations one found
him a trifle somnolent. It was after settling quite
under his wing — and that she was under it she had
discovered only after falling in love with the little
white cottage and rushing eagerly into tenancy—
that she had found out what a perfect neighbor he
was; then come to feel him as a near friend; then,
as those other friends had termed it, to care for him.
Valerie Upton, herself, had never called it by any
other name, this feeling about Sir Basil; though it
was inevitable, in a woman of her clearness of vision,
that she should very soon recognize a more definite
quality in Sir Basil's feeling about her. That she
had always kept him from naming it more definitely
was a feat for which, she well knew it, she could

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 35

allow herself some credit. Not only had it needed,
at some moments, dexterity ; it had needed, at
others, self-control. Self-control, however, was
habitual to her. She had long since schooled herself
into the acceptance of her stupidly maimed life,
seeing herself in no pathetic similes at all, but,
rather, as a foolish, unformed creature who, partly
through blindness, partly through recklessness, had
managed badly to cripple herself at the outset of
life's walk, and who must make the best of a hop-
skip-and-jump gait for the rest of it. She had felt,
when she decided that she had a right to live away
from Everard, that she had no right to ask more of
fortune than that escape, that freedom. One paid
for such freedom by limiting one's possibilities, and
she had never hesitated to pay. Never to indulge
herself in sentimental repinings or in sentimental
musings, never to indulge others in sentimental rela
tionships, had been the most obvious sort of pay
ment; and if, in regard to Sir Basil, the payment
had sometimes been difficult, the reward had been
that sense of unblemished peace, that sense of com
posure and gaiety. It was enough to know, as a
justification of her success, that she made him
happy, not unhappy. It was enough to know that
she could own freely to herself how much she cared
for him, so much that, finding him funny, dear, and
dull, she was far fonder of his f unniness, of his dull
ness, than of other people's cleverness. He made
her feel as if, on that maimed, that rather hot and
jaded walk, sho had come upon the great oak-tree
and sat down to rest in its peaceful shadow, hearing

36 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

it rustle happily over her and knowing that it was
secure strength she leaned against, knowing that the
happy rustle was for her, because she was there,
peaceful and confident. So it had all been like a
gift, a sad, sweet secret that one must not listen to
except with blindfolded eyes. She had never allowed
the gift to become a burden or a peril. And now,
to-day, for the first time, it was as though she could
raise the bandage and look at him.

She sat beside him in her widow's enfranchising
blackness and she could n't but see, at last, how
deep was that upwelling, inevitable fondness. So
deep that, gazing, as if with new and dazzled eyes,
she wondered a little giddily over the long self-mas
tery; so deep that she almost felt it as a strange,
unreal tribute to trivial circumstance that, without
delay, she should not lean her head against the dear
oak and tell it, at last, that its shelter was all that
she asked of life. It was necessary to banish the
vision by the firm turning to that other, that dark
one, of her dead husband, her grief-stricken child,
and, in looking, she knew that while it was so near
she could not dwell on the possibilities of freedom.
So she talked with her friend, able to smile, able,
once or twice, to use toward him her more intimate
tone of affectionate playfulness.

"But you are coming back— directly !" Sir Basil
exclaimed, when she told him that she expected her
boy in a few days and that they would sail for New
York together.

Not directly, she answered. Before very long, she
hoped. So many things depended on Imogen.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 37

"But she will live with you now, over here."

"I don't think that she will want to leave
America," said Valerie. "I don't think, even, that
I want her to. ' '

"But this is your home, now," Sir Basil protested,
looking about, as though for evidences of the asser
tion, at the intimate comforts of the room. "You
know that you are more at home here than there. ' '

"Not now. My home, now, is Imogen's."

Sir Basil appeared to reflect, and then to put
aside reflection as, after all, inapplicable, as yet, to
the situation.

"Well, I must pay America a visit," he said with
an unemphatic smile. "I 've not been there for
twenty years, you know. I '11 like seeing it again,
and seeing you — in Miss Imogen's home."

Valerie again flushed a little. In some matters
Sir Basil was anything but dull, and his throwing,
now, of the bridge was most tactfully done. He
intended that she should see it solidly spanning the
distance between them and only time was needed,
she knew, to give him his right of walking over it,
and her right— but that was one of the visions she
must not look at. A great many things lay between
now and then, confused, anxious, perhaps painful,
things. The figure of Imogen so filled the immediate
future that the place where Sir Basil should take
up his thread was blotted into an almost melancholy
haze of distance. But it was good to feel the bridge
there, to know him so swift and so sure.

"She is very clever, your girl, is n't she? I 've
always felt it from what you 've told me," he said,

38 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

defining for himself, as she saw, the future where
they were to meet.

"Very, I think."

"Very learned and artistic. I 'm afraid she '11
find me an awful Philistine. You must stand up for
me with her. ' '

"I will," Valerie smiled, adding, "but Imogen is
very pretty, too, you know. ' '

"Yes, I know; one can see that in the photo
graphs, ' ' said Sir Basil. There were several of these
standing about the room and he got up to look at
them, one after the other — Imogen in evening, in day
dress, all showing her erect slenderness, her crown
of hair, her large, calm eyes.

"She looks kind but very cool, you know," he
commented. "She would take one in at a great rate ;
not find much use for an every-day person like me. ' '

"Oh, you won't be an every-day person to Imogen.
And her great point, I think, is her finding a use for
everybody. ' '

"Making them useful to her?"

"No— to themselves— to the world in general."

"Improving them, do you mean?"

"Well, yes, I should say that was more it. She
likes to give people a lift. ' '

"But — she 's so very young. How does she man
age it?" Sir Basil queried over the photograph,
whose eyes dwelt on him while he spoke.

"Oh, you '11 see," Valerie smiled a little at his
pertinacity. "I 've no doubt that she will improve
you."

"Well," said Sir Basil, recognizing her jocund

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 39

intention, "she 's welcome to try. As long as you
are there to see that she is n't too hard on me."
He dismissed Imogen, then, from his sight and
thoughts, replacing her on the writing-table and
suggesting that Mrs. Upton should take a little walk
with him. His horse had been put into the stable
and he could come back for him. Mrs. Upton said
that when they came back he must stay to lunch and
that he could ride home afterward, and this was
agreed on; so that in ten minutes' time Mrs. Paken-
ham and Mrs. Wake, from their respective windows,
were able to watch their widowed friend walking
away across the heather with Sir Basil beside her.

Neither spoke much as they wended their way
along the little paths of silvery sand that intersected
the common. The day was clear, with a milky, blue-
streaked sky; the distant foldings of the hills were
of a deep, hyacinthine blue.

From time to time Sir Basil glanced at the face
beside him, thoughtful to sadness, its dusky fairness
set in black, but attentive, as always, to the sights
and sounds of the well-loved country about her. He
liked to watch the quick glancing, the clear gazing,
of her eyes ; everything she looked at became at once
more significant to him— the tangle of tenacious roots
that thrust through the greensand soil of the lane
they entered, the suave, gray columns of the beeches
above, the blurred mauves and russets of the woods,
the swift, awkward flight of a pheasant that crossed
their way with a creaking whir of wings, the ame
thyst stars of a bush of Michaelmas daisies, showing
over a whitewashed cottage wall, the far blue dis-

40 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

tance before them, framed in the tracery of the
beech-boughs. He knew that she loved it all from
the way she looked at it and, almost indignantly, as
though against some foolish threat, he felt himself
asseverating, "It is her home — she knows it — the
place she loves like that." And when they had
made their wide round, down the lane, up a grassy
dell, into his park, where he had to show her some
trees that must come down ; when they had skirted
the park, along its mossy, fern-grown wall, and
under its overhanging branches, until, once more,
they were on the common and the white of Valerie 's
cottage glimmered before them, he voiced this pro
test, saying to her, as he watched her eyes dwell on
the dear little place, "You could never bear to leave
all this for good— even if, even if we let you; you
know you could n't."

Valerie looked round at him, and in his face,
against its high background of milk-streaked blue,
she saw the embodiment of his words; it was that,
not the hyacinthine hills, not the beech-woods, not
the heathery common, not even the dear cottage, that
she could not bear to leave for good. But since this
could n't be said, she consented to the symbol of it
that he put before her, that "all this," and answered,
as he had hoped, "No, indeed; I could n't think of
leaving it all, for good."

IV

|T was an icy, sunny day, and Imogen
Upton and Jack Pennington were walk
ing up and down the gaunt wharf, not
caring to take refuge from the cold in
the stifling waiting-rooms. The early
morning sky was still pink. The waters of the vast
harbor were whitened by blocks and sheets of ice.
The great city, drawn delicately on the pink in
white and pearl, marched its fantastic ranges of
"sky-scrapers" — an army of giants— down to the
water's edge. And, among all the rose and gold and
white, the ocean-liner, a glittering immensity of
helpless strength, was being hauled and butted into
her dock, like some harpooned sea-monster, by a
swarm of blunt-nosed, agile little tugs.

Jack Pennington thought that he had never seen
Imogen looking so "wonderful" as on this morning.
The occasion, to him, was brimming over with sig
nificance. He had not expected to share it, but
Imogen had spoken with such sweetness of the help
that he would give her if he could be with her in
her long, cold waiting, that, with touched delight,
he found himself in the position of a friend so
trusted, so leaned upon, that he could witness what
there must be of pain and fear for her in this meet-

41

42 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

ing of her new life. The old life was with them
both. Her black armed her in it, as it were, made
her valiant to meet the new. And for him that old
life, the life menaced, though so trivially, by the
arriving presence, seemed embodied in the free
spaces of the great harbor, the soaring sky of frosty
rose, the grotesque splendor of the giant city, the
glory, the ugliness of the country he loved, the
country that made giant-like, grotesque cities, and
that made Imogens.

She was the flower of it all— the flower and the
so much more than flower, fie did n't care a fig,
so he told himself, about the mere fact of her being
beautiful, finished, in her long black furs, her face
so white, her hair so gold under her little hat. She
was n't to be picked and placed high, above the
swarming ugliness. No, and that was why he cared
for her when he had ceased to care for so many
pretty girls— her roots were deep ; she shared her
loveliness; she gave; she opened; she did not shut
away. She was the promise for many rather than
the guerdon of the few. Jack's democracy was the
ripe fruit of an ancestry of high endeavor and high
responsibility. The service of impersonal ends was
in his blood, and no meaner task had ever been asked
of him or of a long line of forebears. He had never
in his own person experienced ugliness ; it remained
a picture, seen but not felt by him, so that it was
not difficult for him to see it with the eyes of faith
as glorified and uplifted. It constituted a splendid
burden, an ennobling duty, for those who possessed
beauty, and without that grave and happy right to

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 43

serve, beauty itself would lose all meaning. He often
talked about democracy to Imogen. She understood
what he felt about it more firmly, more surely, than
he himself did; for, where he sometimes suspected
himself of theory, she acted. She, too, rejoiced in
the fundamental sameness of the human family that
banded it together in, essentially, the same great
adventure— the adventure of the soul.

Imogen understood ; Imogen rejoiced ; Imogen was
bound on that adventure— not only with him, but,
and it was this that gave those wide wings to his
feeling for her, with them — with all the vast
brotherhood of humanity. Now and then, to be
sure, faint echoes in her of her father, touches of
youthful assurance, youthful grandiloquence, stirred
the young man 's sense of humor ; but it was quickly
quelled by an irradiating tenderness that showed her
limitations as symptoms of an influence that, in its
foolish aspects, he would not have had her too
clearly recognize ; her beautiful, filial devotion more
than compensated for her filial blindness — nay, sanc
tified it ; and her heavenly face had but to turn on
him for him to envelop all her little solemnities and
importances in a comprehending reverence. Jack
thought Imogen's face very heavenly. He was an
artist by profession, as we have said, taking himself
rather seriously, too, but the artistic perception was
so strongly colored by ethical and intellectual pre
occupations that the spontaneous satisfaction in the
Eternal Now of mere beauty was rarely his. Cer
tainly he saw the fluwer-like texture of Imogen's
skin; the way in which the light azured its white-

44 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

ness and slid upon its child-like surfaces. He saw
the long oval of the face, the firm and gentle lips,
drawn with a delicate amplitude, the broad hazel
eyes set under a level sweep of dark eyebrow and
outlined, not shadowed, so clear, so wide they were,
by the dark lashes. But all the fresh loveliness of
line, surface, color, remained an intellectual appre
ciation ; while what touched, what penetrated, were
the analogies she suggested, the lovely soul that the
lovely face vouched for. The oval of her face and
the charming squaring of her eyes, so candid, so
unmysterious, made him think of a Botticelli Ma
donna ; and her long, narrow hands, with their
square finger-tips, might have been the hands of a
Botticelli angel holding a votive offering of fruit
and flowers. His mind seldom rested in her beauty,
passing at once through it to what it expressed of
purity, strength and serenity. It expressed so much
of these that he had never paused at the portals, as
it were, to feel the defects of her face. Imogen's
nose was too small ; neat rather than beautiful. Her
eyes, with the porcelain-like quality of their white,
the jewel-like color of their irises, were over-large;
and when she smiled, which she did often, though
with more gentleness than gaiety, she showed an
over-spacious expanse of large white teeth. For the
rest, Imogen's figure was that of the typical well-
groomed, well-trained, American girl, long-limbed,
slender, rounded; in her carriage a girlish air of
consciousness ; the poise of her broad shoulders and
slender hips expressing at once hygienic and fash
ionable ideals that reproved slack gaits and outlines.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 45

As they walked, as they talked, watching the slow
advance of the great steamer; as their eyes rested
calmly and intelligently on each other, one could see
that the girl's relation to this dear friend was un
touched by any trace of coquetry and that his feel
ing for her, if deep, was under most perfect control.

"It 's over a year, now, since I saw mama,"
Imogen was saying, as they turned again from a
long scrutiny of the crowded decks— the distance
was as yet too great for individual recognition.
''She did n't come over this summer as usual, — poor
dear, how bitterly she must regret that now, though
it was hardly her fault, papa and I fixed on our
Western trip for the summer. It seems a very long
time to me."

"And to me," said Jack. "It 's only a year since
I came really to know you ; but how much longer it
seems than that."

"It 's strange that we should know each other so
well and yet that you have never seen my mother,"
said Imogen. "Is that she? No, she is not so tall.
Poor darling, how tired and sad she must be."

"You are tired and sad, too," said Jack.

"Ah, but I am young— youth can bear so much
better. And, besides, I don't think that my sadness
would ever be like mama's. You see, in a way, I
have so much more in my life. I should never sit
down in my sadness and let it overwhelm me. I
should use it, always. It is strange that grief should
so often make people selfish. It ought, rather, to
open doors for us and give us wider visions."

He was so sure that it had performed these offices

46 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

for her, looking, as he now looked, at her delicate
profile, turned from him while she gazed toward the
ship, that he was barely conscious of the little tremor
of amusement that went through him for the trite
ness of her speech. Such triteness was beautiful
when it expressed such reality.

"I suppose that you will count for more, now, in
your mother's life," he said, — that Imogen should,
seemingly, have counted for so little had been the
frequent subject of his indignant broodings. "She
will make you her object."

Imogen smiled a little. "Is n't it more likely that
I shall make her mine ? one of mine ? But you don't
know mama yet. She is, in a way, very lovely —
but so much of a child. So much younger— it seems
funny to say it, but it 's true — than I am."

"Littler," Jack amended, "not younger."

But Imogen, while accepting the amendment,
would n't accept the negation.

"Both, I 'm afraid," she sighed.

"Will she like it over here?" Jack mused more
than questioned.

"Hardly, since she has always lived as little here
as she could manage."

"Perhaps she will want to take you back to Eng
land," he surmised, conscious, while he spoke the
almost humorous words, of a very firm determination
that she should n't do so.

Imogen paused in her walk at this, fixing upon
him eyes very grave indeed. "Take me back to
England ? Do you really think that I would consent
to that ? Surely you know me better, Jack ? ' '

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 47

"I think I do. Only you might yield against your
will, if she insisted."

"Surely you know me well enough to know that I
would never yield against my will, if I knew that
my will was right. I might sacrifice a great deal
for mama — I am prepared to— but never that.
Never," Imogen repeated. "There are some things
that one must not sacrifice. Her living in England
is a whim ; my living in my own country is part of
my religion."

"I know, of course, dear Imogen. But," Jack
was argumentative, "as to sacrifice, say that it was
asked of you, by right. Say, for instance, that you
married a man who had to take you out of your own
country ? ' '

She smiled a little at the stupid surmise. "That
hardly applies. Besides, I would never marry a
man who was not one of my own people, who was
not a part— as I am a part— of the Whole I live for.
My life is here, all its meaning is here— you know it
—just as yours is."

"I love to know it— I was only teasing you."

He loved to know it, of course. Yet, while it an
swered to all his own theories that the person should
be so much less to her than the idea the person lived
for, he could n't but feel at times, with a rueful
sense of unworthiness, that this rare capacity in her
might apply in most unwelcome fashion to his own
case. In Jack, the deep wells of feeling and emotion
were barred and bolted over by a whole complicated
system of reticences ; by a careful sense of responsi
bility, not only toward others, but toward himself;

48 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

by a disciplined self-control that was a second na
ture. But, he could see it well enough, if such deep
wells there were in Imogen, they, as yet, were in no
need of barring and bolting. Her eyes could show a
quiet acceptance of homage, a placid conviction of
power, a tender sympathy, but the depth and trouble
of emotion was not yet in them. He often suspected
that he was nearer to her when he talked to her of
causes than when he ventured, now and then, to
talk about his feelings. There was always the un
comfortable surmise that the man who could offer
a more equipped faculty for the adventure of the
soul, might altogether outdistance him with Imogen.
By any emotion, any appeal or passion that he might
show, she would remain, so his intuition at moments
told him, quite unbiased; while she weighed simply
worth against worth, and weight— in the sense of
strength of soul — against weight. And it was this
intuition that made self-control and reticence easier
than they might otherwise have been. His theories
might assure him that such integrity of purpose
was magnificent; his manly common-sense told him
that in a wife one wanted to be sure of the taint of
personal preference ; so that, while he knew that he
would never need to weigh Imogen's worth against
anybody else's, he watched and waited until some
unawakened capacity in her should be able happily
to respond to the more human aspects of life. Mean
while the steamer had softly glided into the dock and
the two young people at last descried upon the crowded
decks the tall, familial- figure of Eddy Upton, like

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 49

Imogen in his fairness, clearness, but with a more
masculine jut of nose and chin, sharper lines of brow
and cheek and lip. And beside Eddy— Jack hardly
needed the controlled quiet of Imogen's ''There 's
mama" to identify the figure in black.

She leaned there, high and far, on the deck of the
great steamer that loomed above their heads, almost
ominous in its gigantic bulk and darkness ; she leaned
there against the rosy sky, her face intent, search
ing, bent upon the fluttering, shouting throng be
neath ; and for Jack, in this first impression of her,
before she had yet found Imogen, there was something
pathetic in the earnestness of her searching gaze,
something that softened the rigors of his disappro
bation. But, already, too, he fancied that he caught
the expected note of the frivolous in the outline of
her fur-lined coat, in the grace of her little hat.

Still she sought, her face pale and grave, while,
with an imperceptible movement, the steamer glided
forward, and now, as Imogen raised her muff in a
long, steady wave, her eyes at last found her daugh
ter and, smiling, smiling eagerly down upon them, she
leaned far over the deck to wave her answer. She put
her hand on her son's arm, pointing them out to him,
and Eddy, also finding them, smiled too, but with
his rather cool kindness, raising his hat and giving
Jack a recognizing nod. It was then as if he intro
duced Jack. Jack saw her question, saw him as
sent, and her smile went from Imogen to him envel
oping him with its mild radiance.

"She is very lovely, your mother, as you say,''

50 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Jack commented, feeling a little breathless over this
silent meeting of forces that he must think of as
hostile, and finding nothing better to say.

Imogen, who had continued steadily to wave her
muff, welcoming, but for her part unsmiling, an
swered, "Yes."

"I hope that she won't mind my being here, in
the way, after a fashion, ' ' said Jack.

"She won't mind," said Imogen.

He knew the significance of her voice ; displeasure
was in its gentleness, a quiet endurance of distress.
It struck him then, in a moment, that it was rather
out of place for Mrs. Upton to smile so radiantly at
such a home-coming. Not that the smile had been a
gay one. It had shone out after her search for her
daughter's face; for the finding of it and for him
it had continued to shine. It was like sunlight on
a sad white day of mist; it did not dispel mournful-
ness, it seemed only to irradiate it. But — to have
smiled at all. With Imogen's eyes he saw, suddenly,
that tears would have been the more appropriate
greeting and, in looking back at the girl once more,
he saw that her own, as if in vicarious atonement,
were running down her cheeks. She, then, felt a
doubled suffering and his heart hardened against
the woman who had caused it.

The two travelers had disappeared and the decks
were filled with the jostling hurry of final departure.
Jack and Imogen moved to take their places by the
long gangway that slanted up from the dock.

He said nothing to her of her tears, silent before
this subtle grief ; perhaps, for all his love and sym-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 51

pathy, a little disconcerted by its demonstration, and
it was Imogen who spoke, murmuring, as they stood
together, looking up, "Poor, poor papa."

Yes, that had been the hurt, to see her dead put
aside, almost forgotten, in the mother's over-facile
smile.

The passengers came trooping down the gangway,
with an odd buoyancy of step caused by the steep
incline, and Jack, for all his expectancy, had eyes,
appreciative and critical, for the procession of his
country-people. Stout, short men, embodying purely
economic functions, with rudimentary features,
slightly embossed, as it were, upon pouch-like faces.
Thin, young men, whose lean countenances had some
what the aspect of steely machinery, apt for swift,
ruthless, utilitarian processes. Bloodless old men,
many of whom looked like withered, weary children
adorned with whitened hair. The average manhood
of America, with its general air of cheap and hasty
growth, but varied here and there by a higher type ;
an athletic collegian, auspiciously Grecian in length
of limb, width of brow, deep placidity of eye ; varied
by a massive senatorial head or so, tolerant, humor
ous, sagacious; varied by a stalwart Westerner, and
by the weedier scholar, sensitive, self-conscious, too
much of the spiritual and too little of the animal in
the meager body and over-intelligent face.

There was a certain discrepancy, in dress and
bodily well-being, between the feminine and the
masculine portion of the procession; many of the
heavy matrons, wide-hipped, well-corseted, benig
nant and commanding of mien, were ominously sug-

52 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

gestive, followed as they were by their fragile hus
bands, of the female spider and her doomed, inferior,
though necessary, mate. The young girls of the
happier type resembled Imogen Upton in grace, in
strength, in calm and in assurance ; the less fortunate
were sharp, sallow, anxious-eyed ; and the children
were either rosy, well-mannered, and confident, or
ill-mannered, over-mature, but also, always, confi
dent.

Highly equipped with every graceful quality of
his race, not a touch of the male spider about him,
Eddy's head appeared at last, proud, delicate and
strong. His mother, carrying a small dog, was on
his arm, and, as she emerged before the eyes that
watched for her, she was smiling again at something
that Eddy had said to her. Then her eyes found
them, Jack and Imogen, so near now, sentinels before
the old life, that her smile, her aspect, her very love
liness, seemed to menace, and Jack felt that she
caught a new gravity from the stern gentleness of
Imogen's gaze; that she adjusted her features to
meet it ; that, with a little shock, she recognized the
traces of weeping on her daughter's face and saw,
in his own intentionally hardened look, that she had
tuned herself to a wrong pitch and had been, all
unconsciously, jarring.

He could n't but own that her readjustment, if
readjustment it was, was very beautifully done.
Tears rose in her eyes, too. He saw, as she neared
them, that her face was pale and weary; it looked
ever so gently, ever so sadly, perhaps almost timidly,
at her daughter, and as she came to them she put

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 53

out her hand to Imogen, laid hold on her and held
her without speaking while they all moved away
together.

The tears of quick sympathy had risen to Jack's
own eyes and he stood apart while the mother and
daughter kissed. After that, and when they had
gone on a little before him and Eddy, Mrs. Upton
turned to him, and if she readjusted herself she
did n't, as it were, retract, for the smile again
rested on him while Eddy presented him to her. He
saw then that she had suffered, though with a suf
fering different from any that he would have thought
of as obvious. How or what she had suffered he
could not tell, but the pale, weary features, for all
their smile, reassured him. She was n't, at all
events, a heartless, a flippant woman,

Eddy and Mrs. Upton's maid remained behind to
do battle with the custom-house, and Jack, with
Imogen and her mother, got into the capacious cab
that was waiting for them.

The streets in this mean quarter were deep in
mud. The snow everywhere had been trampled into
liquid blackness, and the gaunt horses that galloped
along the wharfs dragging noisy vans and carts
were splashed all over. It might have been some
sordid quarter of an Italian town that they drove
through, so oddly foreign were the disheveled
houses, their predominant color a heavy, glaring red.
Men in white uniforms were shoveling snow from
the pavements. The many negro countenances in
the hurrying crowds showed blue tints in the bitter
air. Coming suddenly to a wide, mean avenue,

54 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

when the carriage lurched and swayed on the
street-car tracks, they heard, mingled in an incon
ceivably ugly uproar, the crash and whine of the
cable-cars about them, and the thunder of the ele
vated-railway above their heads.

Jack, sensitive to others' impressions, wondered
if this tumultuous ugliness made more dreary to
Mrs. Upton the dreary circumstances of her home
coming. There was no mitigation of dreariness to
be hoped for from Imogen, who was probably ab
sorbed in her own bitter reflections. She gazed
steadily out of the window, replying only with
quiet monosyllables to her mother's tentative ques
tions; her face keeping its look of endurance. One
could infer from it that had she not so controlled
herself she must have wept, and sitting before the
mother and daughter Jack felt much awkwardness
in his position. If their meeting were not to be one
with more conventional surface he really ought not to
have been invited to share it. Imogen, poor darling,
had all his sympathy; she had n't reckoned with the
difficulties; she had n't reckoned with that hurting
smile, with the sharp reawakening of the vicarious
sense of wrong; but, all the same, before her look,
her silence, he could but feel for her mother, and
feel, too, a keener discomfort from the fact that his
inopportune presence must make Mrs. Upton's dis
comfort the greater.

Mrs. Upton stroked her tiny dog, who, fulfilling
all Jack's conceptions of costly frivolity, was
wrapped in a well-cut coat, in spite of which he

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 55

was shivering, from excitement as much as from
cold, and her bright, soft gaze went from him to
Imogen. She did n't acquiesce for long in the
silence. Leaning forward to him presently she
began to ask him questions about Boston, the dear
old great-aunt ; to make comments, some reminiscent,
some interrogative, upon the scenes they passed
through; to lead him so tactfully into talk that he
found himself answering and assenting almost as
fluently as if Imogen in her corner had not kept
those large, sad eyes fixed on the passing houses.
So mercifully did her interest and her ease lift him
from discomfort that, with a sharp twinge of self-
reproach, he more than once asked himself if Imogen
found something a little disloyal in his willingness
to be helped. One could n't, all the same, remain
at the dreadful depth where her silence plunged
them; such depths were too intimate. Mrs. Upton
had felt that. It was because she was not intimate
that she smiled upon him; it was because she in
tended to hold them both firmly on the surface that
she was so kind. He watched her face with wonder,
and a little fear, for which he was angry with him
self. He noted the three grains de beaute and the
smile that seemed to break high on her cheek, in a
small nick, like that on the cheek of a Japanese
doll. She frightened him, made him feel shy, yet
made him feel at ease, too, as though her own were
contagious; and his impression of her was softly
permeated with the breath of violets. Jack disap
proved of perfumes; but he really could n't tell

56 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

whether it was n 't Mrs. Upton 's gaze only, the sweet
oddity of her smile, that, by some trick of associa
tion, suggested the faint haze of fragrance.

They reached the long, far sweep of Fifth Avenue,
piled high with snow— dazzling in white, blue, gold
—on either side, and they turned presently into a
street of brownstone houses, houses pleasant, peace
ful, with an air of happy domesticity.

Mrs. Upton's eyes, while the cab advanced with
many jolts among the heaps of snow, fixed themselves
on one of these houses, and Jack fancied that he
saw in her glance a whole army of alarmed memories
forcibly beaten back. Here she had come as a bride
and from here, not three weeks ago, her dead hus
band had gone with only his children beside him.
Now, if ever, she should feel remorse. Whether she
did or not he could not tell, but the eyes with which
she greeted her old home were not happy.

Imogen, as they alighted, spoke at last, asking
him to stay to lunch. He recognized magnanimity
in her glance. He had seemed to ignore her hurt,
and she forgave him, understanding his helplessness.
But though her mother seconded her invitation with,
"Do, you must be so tired and hungry, after all
these hours," Jack excused himself. Already he
thought, a woman with such a manner as Mrs.
Upton's— if manner were indeed the word for such
a gliding simplicity— must wonder what in the name
of heaven he did there. She was simple, she was
gliding ; but she was not near.

"May I come in soon and see you?" he said to

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 57

Imogen while they paused at the foot of the stone
steps. And, with at last her own smile, sad but
sweet, for him, she answered, "As soon as you will,
dear Jack. You know how much of strength and
comfort you mean to me.

JACK, however, did not go for three or
four days, giving them plenty of time,
as he told himself, to get used to each
other's excesses or lacks of grief. And
as he waited for Imogen in the long
drawing-room that had been the setting of so many
of their communings, he wondered what adjustment
the mother and daughter had come to.

The aspect of the drawing-room was unchanged;
changelessness had always been for him its character
istic mark ; in essentials, he felt sure, it had not
changed since the days of old Mrs. Upton, the
present Mrs. Upton's long deceased mother-in-law.
Only a touch here and there showed the passage of
time. It was continuous with the dining-room, so
that it was but one long room that crossed all the
depth of the house, tall windows at the back, heavily
draped, echoing dimly the windows of the front that
looked out upon the snowy, glittering street. The
inner half could be shut away by folding-doors, and
its highly polished sideboard, chairs, table, a silver
epergne towering upon it, glimmered in a dusky
element that relegated it, when not illuminated for
use, to a mere ghostly decorativeness. By contrast,
the drawing-room was vivid. Its fringed and but
toned furniture, — crimson brocade set in a dark carved

68

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 59

wood, the dangling lusters of the huge chandelier,
the elaborate Sevres vases on the mantelpiece, flank
ing a bronze clock portentously gloomy, expressed
old Mrs. Upton's richly solid ideals; but these per
manent uglinesses distressed Jack less than the
pompous and complacent taste of the later additions.
A pretentious cabinet of late Italian Renaissance
work stood in a corner ; the dark marble mantelpiece,
that looked like a sarcophagus, was incongruously
draped with an embroidered Italian cope, and a
pseudo-Correggio Madonna, encompassed with a
wilderness of gilt frame, smiled a pseudo-smile from
the embossed paper of the walls. It was one of
Jack's little trials to hear Imogen refer to this
trophy with placid conviction.

Yet, for all its solemn stupidity, the room was
not altogether unpleasing; it signified something,
were it only an indifference to fashion. It was, fun.
nily, almost Spartan, for all the carving, the cush,
ioning, the crimson, so little concession did it make
to other people 's standards or to small, happy minor
uses. Mr. Upton and his daughter had not changed
it because they had other things to think of; and
they thought of these things not in the drawing-room
but in the large library up-stairs. There one could
find the personal touches, that, but for the cope, the
cabinet, the Correggio, were lacking below. There the
many photographs from the Italian primitives, the
many gracious Donatello and Delia Robbia bas-
reliefs, expressed something of Imogen, too, though
Jack always felt that Imogen's esthetic side ex
pressed what was not very essential in her.

60 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

While he waited now, he had paused at last before
two portraits. He had often so paused while
waiting for Imogen. To-night it was with a new
curiosity.

They hung opposite the Correggio and on either
side of the great mirror that rose from the mantel
piece to the cornice. One was of a young man
dressed in the fashion of twenty-five years before,
dressed with a rather self-conscious negligence. He
was pale, earnest, handsome, though his nose was too
small and his eyes too large. A touch of the his
trionic was in his attitude, in his dark hair, tossed
carelessly, in the unnecessarily weighty and steady
look of his dark eyes, even in the slight smile of his
firm, full lips, a smile too well-adapted, as it were,
to the needs of any interlocutor. Beneath his arm
was a book; a long, distinguished hand hanging
slackly. Jack turned away with a familiar impa
tience. In twenty-five years Mr. Upton had changed
very little. It was much the same face that he had
known ; in especial, the slack, self-conscious hand,
the smile — always so much more for himself than
for you— were familiar. The hand, the necktie, the
smile, so deep, so dark, so empty, were all, Jack was
inclined to suspect, that there had ever been of Mr.
Upton.

The other portrait, painted with the sleek conven-
tion of that earlier epoch, was of a woman in a ball-
dress. The portrait was by a French master and
under his brush the sitter had taken on the look of a
Feuillet heroine. She was gay, languid, sentimental,
and extraordinarily pretty. Her hair was dressed

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 61

in a bygone fashion, drawn smoothly up from the
little ears, coiled high and falling across her fore
head in a light, straight fringe. Her wonderful
white shoulders rose from a wonderfully low white
bodice; a bracelet of emeralds was on her arm, a
spray of jasmine in her fingers; she was evidently
a girl, yet in her apparel was a delicate splendor, in
her gaze a candid assurance, that marked her as an
American girl. And she expressed charmingly, with
sincerity as it were, a frivolous convention. This
was Miss Cray, a year or so before her marriage
with Mr. Upton. The portrait had been painted in
Paris, where, orphaned, lovely, but not largely dow
ered, she had, under the wing of an aunt domiciled
in France for many years and bearing one of its
oldest names, failed to make the brilliant match
that had been hoped for her. This touch of France
in girlhood echoed an earlier impress. Imogen had
told him that her mother had been educated for
some years in a French convent, deposited there by
pleasure-loving parents during European wander
ings, and Imogen had intimated that her mother's
frequent returns to her native land had never quite
effaced alien and regrettable points of view. Be
fore this portrait, Jack was accustomed, not to
impatience, but to a gaze of rather ironic compre
hension. It had always explained to him so much.
But to-night he found himself looking at it with an
intentness in which was a touched curiosity; in
which, also, and once more he was vexed with him
self for feeling it, was an anxiety, almost a fear.
Of course it had n't been like, even then, he was

62 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

surer than ever of that to-night, with his memory
of the pale face smiling down at him and at Imogen
from the deck of the great steamer. The painter
had seen the mask only ; even then there had been
more to see. And sure, as he had never been before,
of all that there must have been besides to see, he
wondered with a new wonder how she had come to
marry Mr. Upton.

He glanced back at him. Handsome? Yes. Dis
tinguished? Yes; there was no trace of the shoddy
in his spiritual histrionics. He had been fired by
love, no doubt, far beyond his own chill complacency.
Such a butterfly girl, falling with, perhaps, bruised
wings from the high, hard glare of worldly ambi
tions, more of others for her than her own for her
self—of that he felt, also quite newly sure to-night-
such a girl had thought Mr. Upton, no doubt, a very
noble creature and herself happy and fortunate.
And she had been very young.

He was still looking up at Miss Cray when Imogen
came in. He felt sure, from his first glance at her,
that nothing had happened, during the interval of
his abstention, to deepen her distress. In her falling
and folding black she was serene and the look of
untroubled force he knew so well was in her eyes.
She had taken the measure of the grown-up butterfly
and found it easy of management. He felt with
relief that the mother could have threatened none
of the things they held dear. And, indeed, in his
imagination, her spirit seemed to flutter over them
in the solid, solemn room, reassuring through its
very lightness and purposelessness.

"I am so glad to see you," Imogen said, after she

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 63

had shaken his hand and they had seated themselves
on the sofa that stretched along the wall under the
Correggio. "I have been sorry about the other
day."

"Oh!" he answered vaguely, not quite sure for
what the regret was.

"I ought to have mastered myself; been more able
to play the trivial part, as you did; that was such
real kindness in you, Jack, dear. I could n't have
pretended gaiety, but I did n't intend to cast a
gloom. It only became that, I suppose, when I was
—so hurt."

He understood now. "By there not being gloom
enough ? ' '

"If you like to put it so. To see her smile like
that!"

Jack was sorry for her, yet, at the same time,
sorry for the butterfly.

"Yes, I know how you must have felt. But, it was
natural, you know. One smiles involuntarily at a
meeting, however sad its background. I believe
that you would have smiled if she had n 't. "

Imogen's clear eyes were upon him while he thus
shared with her his sense of mitigations and she an
swered without a pause : ' ' Yes, I could have smiled
at her. That would have been different."

"You mean— that you had a right to smile?"

"I can't see how she could," said Imogen in a low
voice, not answering his question; thinking, prob
ably, that it answered itself. And she went on :
"I was ready, you know, to help her to bear it all,
with my whole strength ; but, and it is that that
still hurts me so, she does n't seem to know that

64 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

she needs help. She does n't seem to be bearing
anything. ' '

Jack was silent, feeling here that they skirted too
closely ground upon which, with Imogen, he never
ventured. He had brought from his study of the
portraits a keener sense of how much Mrs. Upton
had to bear no longer.

"But," Imogen continued, oddly echoing his own
sense of deeper insights, "I already understand her
so much better than I 've ever done. I 've never
come so near. Never seen so clearly how little there
is to see. She 's still essentially that, you know,"
and she pointed to the French portrait that, with
softly, prettily mournful eyes, gazed out at them.

"The butterfly thing," Jack suggested rather than
acquiesced.

"The butterfly thing," she accepted.

But Jack went on : " Not only that, though.
There is, I 'm very sure, more to see. She is so — so
sensible. ' '

' ' Sensible ? ' ' again Imogen accepted. ' ' Well, is n 't
that portrait sensible? Does n't that lovely, luxu
rious girl see and want all the happy, the easy things
of life? It is sensible, of course, clearly to know
what they are, and firmly to make for them. That 's
just what I recognize now in her, that all she wants
is to make things easy, to glisser."

"Yes, I can believe that," he murmured, a little
dazed by her clear decisiveness ; he often felt Imogen
to be so much more clear-sighted, so much more
clever than himself when it came to judgments and
insights, that he could only at the moment acquiesce,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 65

through helplessness. "I suppose that is the essen
tial — the desire of ease."

"And it hurts you that I should be able to see it,
to say it, of my mother." Her eyes, with no hard
ness, no reproach, probed him, too. She almost made
him feel unworthy of the trust she showed him.

"No," he said, smiling at her, "because I know
that it 's only to a friend who so understands you,
who so cares for all that comes into your life. ' '

"Only to such a friend, indeed," she returned
gently.

' ' Have they been hard, these days ? " he asked her,
atoning to himself for the momentary shrinking that
she had detected.

"Yes, they have," she answered, "and the more
so from my seeing all her efforts to keep them soft ;
as if it was ease / wanted ! But I have faced it all. ' '

"What else has there been to face?"

She said nothing for some moments, looking at him
with a thoughtful openness that, he felt, was almost
marital in its sharing of silence.

"She 's against everything, everything," she said
at last.

"You mean in the way we feared? — that she '11
try to change things ? ' '

"She '11 not seem to try. She '11 seem to accept.
But she 's against my country; against my life;
against me."

"Well, if she accepts, or seems to, that will make
it easy for you. There will be nothing to fight, to
oppose."

"Don't use her word, Jack. She will make it easy

66 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

on the surface; but it 's that that will be so hard
for me to bear ; the surface ease over the hidden dis
cord."

"You may resolve the discord. Give her time to
grow her roots. How can you expect anything but
effort now, in this soil that she can't but associate
with mistakes and sorrows ? ' '

"The mistakes and sorrows were in her, not in
the soil," said Imogen; "but don't think that
though I find it hard, I don't face it; don't think
that through it all I have n 't my faith. That is just
what I am going to do : give her time, and help her
to grow with all the strength and love there is in me. ' '

Something naughty, something rebellious and dis
satisfied in him was vaguely stirring and muttering ;
he feared that she might see into him again and give
it a name, although he could only have given it the
old name of a humorous impatience with her as
sured Tightness. Really, she was so over-right that
she almost irked and irritated him, dear and beloved
as she was. One could only call it over-rightness, for
was n't what she said the simple truth, just as he
had always seen it, just as she had always known
that, with her, he saw it ? She had this queer, light
burden suddenly on her hands, so much more of a
burden for being so light, and if her own weight
and wisdom became a little too emphatic in dealing
with it, how could he reproach her? He did n't re
proach her, of course ; but he was afraid lest she
should see that he found her, well, a little funny.

"What does she do with herself?" he asked, turn
ing hastily from his consciousness of amusement.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 67

Imogen's pearly face, bent on him with such con
fidence, made him, once more, ashamed of himself.

"She has seen a good many of her friends. "We
have had quite a stream of fashionable, furbelowed
dames trooping up the steps; very few of them
people that papa and I cared to keep in touch with ;
you know his dislike for the merely pleasure-seeking
side of life. And she has seen the dear Delancy
Pottses, too, and was very nice to them, one of the
cases of seeming to accept; I saw well enough that
they were no more to her than quaint insects she
must do her duty by. And she has been very busy
with business, closeted every day with Mr. Haliwell.
And she takes a walk with me when I can spare the
time, and for the rest of the day she sits in her room
dressed in a wonderful tea-gown and reads French
memoirs, just as she used always to do. ' '

Jack was smiling, amused, now, in no way that
needed hiding, by her smooth flow of description.
"You must take her down to the girls' club some
day," he suggested, "and to see your cripples and
all the rest of it. Get her interested, you know;
give her something else to think of besides French
memoirs. ' '

"Indeed, I 'm going to try to. Though among
my girls I 'm not sure that she would be a very
wise experiment. Such an ondulee, parfumee, pol
ished person with such fashionable mourning would
be, perhaps, a little resented."

"You dress very charmingly, yourself, my deai
Imogen. ' '

"Oh, but quite differently. Mamma's is fashion

68 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

at its very flower of subtle discretion. My clothes,
why, they are of any time you will." She swept
aside her wing-like sleeves to show the Madonna-
like lines of her dress. "A factory girl could wear
just the same shape if she wanted to."

"And she does n't want to, foolish girl? She
wants to wear your mother 's kind instead 1 ' '

' ' She would dimly recognize it as the unattainable
perfection of what she wants. It would pierce."

"Make for envy, you think?"

"Well, I can't see that she would do them any
good," said Imogen, now altogether in her lighter,
happier mood, "but since they may do her good I
must, I think, take her there some day. ' '

"And am I to do her some good? Am I to see
her to-night?" Jack asked, feeling that though her
humor a little jarred on him he could do nothing
better than echo it. Imogen, now, had one of her
frankest, prettiest looks.

"Do you know, she is almost too discreet, poor
dear," she said. "She wants me to see that she
perfectly understands and sympathizes with the
American freedom as to friendships between men
and women, so that she vacates the drawing-room
for my people just as a farmer's wife would do for
her daughter's young men. She has n't asked me
even a question about you, Jack!"

Her gaiety so lifted and warmed him that he was
prompted to say that Mrs. Upton would have to,
very soon, if the answer to a certain question that
he wanted to ask Imogen were what he hoped for.
But the jocund atmosphere of their talk seemed
unfit for such a grave allusion and he repressed the
sally.

VI

HEN Jack went away, after tea, Imogen
remained sitting on the sofa, looking
up from time to time at the two por
traits, while thoughts, quiet and
mournful, but not distressing, passed
through her mind. An interview with Jack usually
left her lapped about with a warm sense of security ;
she could n't feel desolate, even with the greatness
of her loss so upon her, when such devotion sur
rounded her. One deep need of her was gone, but
another was there. Life, as she felt it, would have
little meaning for her if it had not brought to her deep
needs that she, and she alone, could satisfy. With
Jack's devotion and Jack's need to sustain her, it
was n't difficult to bear with a butterfly. One had
only to stand serenely in one's place and watch it
hover. It was, after all, as if she had strung herself
to an attitude of strength only to find that no weight
was to come crushing down upon her. The pain was
that of feeling her mother so light.

"Poor papa," Imogen murmured more than once,
as she gazed up into the steady eyes ; ' ' what a fate it
was for you— to be hurt all your life by a butterfly."
But he had been far, far too big to let it spoil any
thing. He turned all pain to spiritual uses. What
sorrow there was had always been, most of all, for
her.

89

70 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

And then— and here was the balm that had per
fumed all her grief with its sacred aroma— she,
Imogen, had been there to fill the emptiness for him.
She had always been there, it seemed to her, as, in
her quiet, sad retrospect, she looked back, now, to
the very beginnings of consciousness. From the
first she had felt that her place was by his side ; that,
together they stood for something and against some
body. In this very room, so unchanged— she could
even remember the same dull thump of the bronze
clock, the blazing fire, the crimson curtains drawn on
a snowy street,— had happened the earliest of the
episodes that her memory recalled as having so
placed her, so defined her attitude, even for her al
most babyish apprehension. She had brought down
her dolls from her nursery, after tea, and ranged
them on the sofa, while her father walked up and
down the room, his hands in his pockets, his head
thrown back, reciting something to himself, some
poem, or stately fragment of antique oratory. He
paused now and then as he passed her and laid his
hand upon her head and smiled down at her. Then
the lovely lady of the portrait, — just like the portrait
in Imogen's recollection,— had come, all in white,
with wonderful white shoulders, holding a fan and
long white gloves in her hand, and, looking round
from her dolls, small Imogen had known in a moment
that displeasure was in the air. "You are not
dressed!" Those had been her mother's first words
as she paused on the threshold ; and then, echoing
her father's words with amazement and anger, "You
are not coming!"

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 71

The dialogue that followed, vivid on her mother's
side as sparks struck from steel, mild as milk on her
father 's, had been lost upon her ; but through it all she
had felt that he must be right, in his gentleness, and
that she, in her vividness, must be wrong. She felt
that for herself, even before, turning as if from an
unseemly contest, her father said, looking down at
her with a smile that had a twinge of tension, "You
would rather go and see sick and sorry people who
wanted you, than the selfish, the foolish, the over
fed,— would n't you, beautiful little one?"

She had answered quickly, "Yes, papa," and had
kept her eyes on him, not looking at her mother,
knowing in her childish soul that in so answering, so
looking, she shared some triumph with him.

"I '11 say you 're suddenly ill, then?" had come
her mother's voice, but with a deadened note, as
though she knew herself defeated.

"Lie? No. I must ask you, Valerie, never to lie
for me. Say the truth, that I must go to a friend
who needs me ; the truth won 't hurt them. ' '

"But it 's unbelievable, your breaking a dinner en
gagement, at the last hour, for such a reason," the
wife had said.

"Unbelievable, I 've no doubt, to the foolish, the
selfish, the over-fed. Social conventions and social
ideals will always go down for me, Valerie, before
realities, such realities as brotherhood and the need
of a lonely human soul. ' '

While he spoke he had lifted, gently, Imogen's
long, fair curls, and smoothed her head, his eyes still
holding her eyes, and when her mother turned

72 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

sharply and swept out of the room, the sense of
united triumph had made him bend down to her
and made her stretch her arms up to him, so that,
in their long embrace, he seemed to consecrate her to
those "realities" that the pretty, foolish mother
flouted. That had been her initiation and her con
secration.

After that, it could not have been many years
after, though she had brought to it a far more under
standing observation, the next scene that came up
for her was a wrangle at lunch one day, over the
Delancy Pottses— if wrangle it could be called when
one was so light and the other so softly stern.
Imogen by this time had been old enough to know
for what the Pottses counted. They were discoveries
of her father's, Mr. Potts a valuable henchman in
that fight for realities to which her father 's life was
dedicated. Mr. Potts wrote articles in ethical re
views about her father's books— they never seemed
to be noticed anywhere else— and about his many
projects for reform and philanthropy. Both he and
Mrs. Potts adored her father. He lent them, indeed,
all their significance; they were there, as it were,
only for the purpose of crystallizing around his mag
netic center. And of these good people her mother
had said, in her crisp, merry voice, "I hate 'em,"—
disposing of the whole question of value, flipping the
Pottses away into space, as it were, and separating
herself from any interest in them. Even then little
Imogen had comprehendingly shared her father's
still indignation for such levity. Hate the excellent
Pottses, who wrote so beautifully of her father's

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 73

books, so worshiped all that he was and did, so ten
derly cherished her small self ? Imogen felt the old
reprobation as sharply as ever, though the Pottses
had become, to her mature insight, rather burden
some, the poor, good, dull, pretentious dears, and
would be more so, now that their only brilliant func
tion, that of punctually, coruscatingly, and in the
public press, adoring her father, had been taken from
them. One need have no illusion as to the quality of
their note ; it lacked distinction, serving only, in its
unmodulated vehemence, the drum-like purpose of
calling attention to great matters, of reverberating,
so one hoped, through lethargic consciousness.

But Imogen loved the Pottses, so she told herself.
To be sure of loving the Pottses was a sort of pulse
by which one tested one's moral health. She still
went religiously at least twice in every winter to
their receptions— funny, funny affairs, she had to
own it — with a kindly smile and a pleasant sense of
benign onlooking at oddity. One met there young
girls dressed in the strangest ways and affecting the
manners of budding Margaret Fullers— young writ
ers or musicians or social workers, and funny
frowsy, solemn young men who talked, usually with
defective accents, about socialism and the larger life
over ample platefuls of ice-cream. Sweetness and
light, as Mrs. Potts told Imogen, was the note she
tried for in her reunions, and high endeavor and
brotherly love.

Mrs. Potts was a small, stout woman, who held
herself very straight indeed; her hands, on festive
occasions, folded on a lace handkerchief before her.

74 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

She had smooth, black hair, parted and coiled be
hind, and a fat face, pale fawn-color in tint, encom
passing with waste of cheek and chin such a small
group of features— the small, straight nose, the small,
sharp eyes, the small, smiling mouth— all placed too
high, and spanned, held together, as it were, by a
pince-nez firmly planted, like a bow-shaped orna
ment pinning a cluster of minute trinkets on a large
cushion.

Mr. Delancy Potts was tall, limp, blond, and, from
years of only dubious recognition, rather querulous.
He had a solemn eye under a fringe of whitened eye
brow, a long nose, that his wife often fondly alluded
to as "aristocratic" (they were keen on "blood,"
the Delancy Pottses), and a very retreating chin
that one saw sometimes in disastrous silhouette
against the light. Draped in the flowing fullness of
hair and beard, his face showed a pseudo-dignity.

Imogen saw the Pottses with a very candid eye,
and her mind drifted from that distant disposal of
them to the contrast of the recent meeting, recalling
their gestures and postures as they sat, with an un
easy assumption of ease, before her mother, of whom,
for so many years, they had disapproved more, al
most, than they disapproved of municipal corrup
tion and "the smart set." As onlooker she had been
forced to own that her mother's manner toward
them had been quite perfect. She had accepted
them as her husband 's mourners ; had accepted them
as Imogen's friends; had, indeed, so thoroughly ac
cepted them, in whatever capacity they were offered
to her, that Imogen felt that a slight enlightenment

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 75

would be necessary, and that her mother must be
made to feel that her own, even her father's accept
ance of the Pottses, had had always its reservations.

And some acceptances, some atonements, came too
late. The Pottses had not been the only members of
the little circle gathered about her father who had
called forth her mother 's wounding levity. She had
taken refuge on many other occasions in the half-
playful, half -decisive, "I hate 'em," as if to throw
up the final barrier of her own perversity before
pursuit. Not that she had n't been decent enough
in her actual treatment, it was rather that she would
never take the Pottses, or any of the others— oddities
she evidently considered them— seriously ; it was,
most of all, that she would never let them come near
enough to try to take her seriously. She held herself
aloof, not disdainful, but indifferently gay, from
her father's instruments, her father's friends, her
father's aims.

Later on, as Imogen grew into girlhood, her mother
lost most of the gaiety and all of the levity. Imogen
guessed that storms, more violent than any she was
allowed to witness, intervened between young re
bellion and the cautious peace, the hostility that no
longer laughed and no longer lost its temper, but
that, quiet, kind, observant, went its own way, leav
ing her father to go his. The last memory that came
up for her was of what had followed such a storm.
It seemed to mark an epoch, to close the chapter of
struggle and initiate that of acceptance. What the
contest had been she never knew, but she remem
bered in every detail its sequel, remembered lying IL

76 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

bed in her placid, fire-lit room and hearing in her
mother's room next hers the sound of violent sob
bing.

Imogen had felt, while she listened, a vague,
alarmed pity, a pity mingled with condemnation.
Her father never lost his self-control and had taught
her that to do so was selfish ; so that, as she listened
to the undisciplined grief, and thought that it might
be well for her to go in to her mother and console
her, she thought, too, of the line that, tenderly, she
would say to her — for Imogen, now, was fourteen
years old, with an excellent taste in poetry :

"The gods approve
The depth, but not the tumult, of the soul."

It was a line her father often quoted to her and she
always thought of him when she thought of it.

But, just as she was rising to go on this errand of
mercy, her father himself had come in. He sat
down in silence by her bed and put out his hand to
hers and then she seemed to understand all from the
very contrast that his silence made. The sobs they
listened to were those of a passionate, a punished
child, of a child, too, who could use unchildlike
weapons, could cut, could pierce ; she must not leave
her father to go to it. After a little while the sobs
were still and, as her father, without speaking, sat
on, stroking her hair and hand, the door softly
opened and her mother came in. Imogen could see
her, in her long white dressing-gown, with her wide
braids falling on either side, all the traces of weeping
carefully effaced. She often came in so to kiss

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 77

Imogen good-night, gently, and with a slight touch
of shyness, as though she knew herself shut away
from the inner chamber of the child's heart, and the
moment was their tenderest, for Imogen, under
standing, though powerless to respond, never felt so
sorry or so fond as then. But to-night her mother,
seeing them there together hand in hand, seeing that
they must have listened to her own intemperate
grief,— their eyes gravely, unitedly judging her told
her that,— seeing that her husband, as at the very
beginning, had found at once his ally, drew back
quickly and went away without a word. Whatever
the cause of contest, Imogen knew that in this silent
confrontation of each other in her presence was the
final severance. After that her mother had acqui
esced.

She acquiesced, but she yielded nothing, confessed
nothing. One could n't tell whether she, too, judged,
but one suspected it, and the dim sense of an alien
standard placed over against them more and more
closely drew Imogen and her father together for
mutual sustainment. If, however, her mother
judged, she never expressed judgment; and if she
felt the need of sustainment, she never claimed it.
It would, indeed, have been rather fruitless to claim
it from the fourth member of the family group.
Eddy seemed so little to belong to the group. As
far as he went, to be sure, he went always with her
and aga'inst his father, but then Eddy never went
far enough to form any sort of a bulwark. A cheer
ful, smiling, hard young pagan, Eddy, frankly
bored by his father, coolly fond of his mother, avoid

78 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

ing the one, but capable of little effective demon
stration toward the other. Eddy liked achievement,
exactitude, a serene, smiling outlook, and was hap
pily absorbed in his own interests.

So it had all gone on,— Imogen traced it, sitting
there in her quiet corner, holding balances in fair,
firm hands,— her mother drifting into a place of
mere conventionality in the family life ; and Imogen,
even now, could not see quite clearly whether it had
been she who had judged and abandoned her hus
band, or he who had judged and put her aside. In
either case she could sum it up, her eyes lifted once
more to the portrait 's steady eyes, with, ' ' Poor, won
derful papa."

He was gone, the dear, the wonderful one, and she
was left single-handed to carry on his work. What
this work was loomed largely, though vaguely, for
her. The three slender volumes, literary and ethical,
were the only permanent testament that her father
had given to the world ; and dealing, as in the main
they did, with ultimate problems, their keynote an
illumined democracy that saw in most of the results
as yet achieved by his country a base travesty of the
doctrine, the largeness of their grasp was perhaps a
trifle loose. Imogen did not see it. Her apprecia
tion was more of aims than of achievements ; but she
felt that her father's writings were the body, only,
of his message ; its spirit lived— lived in herself and
in all those with whom he had come in fruitful con
tact. It was to hand on the meaning of that spirit
that she felt herself dedicated. Perfect, unflinching
truth ; the unfaltering bearing witness to all men of

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 79

his conception of right; the seeing of her own per
sonality as but an instrument in the service of good
—these were the chief words of the gospel. Life in
its realest sense meant only this dedication. To
serve, to love, to be the truth. Her eyes on her
father's pictured eyes, iinogen smiled into them,
promising him and herself that she would not fail.

vn

was in the library next morning that
Valerie asked Imogen to join her, and
the girl, who had come into the room
with her light, soft step, paused to kiss
her mother's forehead before going to
the opposite seat.

"Deep in ways and means, mamma dear?" she
asked her. ' ' Why, you are quite a business woman. ' '

"Quite," Valerie replied. "I have been going
over things with Mr. Haliwell, you know." She
smiled thoughtfully at Imogen, preoccupied, as the
girl could see, by what she had to say.

Imogen was slightly ruffled by the flavor of as
surance that she felt in her mother, as of someone
who, after gently and vaguely fumbling about for a
clue to her own meaning in new conditions, had
suddenly found something to which she held very
firmly. Imogen was rejoiced for her that she should
find a field of real usefulness — were it only that of
housekeeping and seeing to weekly bills ; but there
was certainly a touch of the inappropriate, perhaps
of the grotesque, in any assumption on her mother's
part of maturity and competence. She therefore
smiled back at her with much the same tolerantly in
terested smile that a parent might bestow on a child's
brick-building of a castle.

80

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 81

"I 'm so glad that you have that to give yourself
to, mama dear," she said. "You shall most cer
tainly be our business woman and add figures and
keep an eye on investment to your heart's content.
I know absolutely nothing of the technical side of
money— I 've thought of it only as an instrument,
a responsibility, a power given me in trust for
others. ' '

Valerie, whose warmth of tint and softness of out
line seemed dimmed and sharpened, as though by a
controlled anxiety, glanced at her daughter, gravely
and a little timidly. And as, in silence, she lightly
dotted her pen over the paper under her hand, un
certain, apparently, with what words to approach
the subject, it was Imogen, again, who spoke, kindly,
but with a touch of impatience.

"We must n't be too long over our talk, dear. I
must meet Miss Bocock at twelve."

"Miss Bocock?" Valerie was vague. "Have I
met her?"

"Not yet. She is a protegee of mine — English — a
Newnham woman — a folk-lorist. I heard of her from
some Boston friends, read her books, and induced
her to come over and lecture to us this winter. We
are arranging about the lectures now. I 've got up
a big class for her — when I say 'I,' I mean, of course,
with the help of all my dear, good friends who are
always so ready to back me up in my undertakings.
She is an immensely interesting woman ; ugly, dresses
tastelessly ; but one does n 't think of that when on(
is listening to her. She has a wonderful mind;
strong, disciplined, stimulating. I 'm very happy

82 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

that I 've been able to give America to her and her
to America. ' '

' ' She must be very interesting, ' ' said Valerie. ' ' I
shall like hearing her. We will get through our
business as soon as possible so that you may keep
your appointment. ' ' And now, after this digression,
she seemed to find it easier to plunge. "You knew
that your father had left very little money, Imogen."

Imogen, her hands lightly folded in her lap, sat
across the table, all mild attention.

"No, I did n't, mama. We never talked about
money, he and I."

"No; still— you spent it."

"Papa considered himself only a steward for
what he had. He used his money, he did not hoard
it, mama dear. Indeed, I know that his feeling
against accumulations of capital, against all private
property, unless used for the benefit of all, was very
strong. ' '

"Yes," said Valerie, after a slight pause, in which
she did not raise her eyes from the paper where her
pen now drew a few neat lines. "Yes, But he has
left very little for Eddy, very little for you ; it was
that I was thinking of. ' '

At this Imogen's face from gentle grew very
grave.

"Mama dear, I don't think that you and papa
would have agreed about the upbringing of a man.
You have the European standpoint; we don't hold
with that over here. We believe in equipping the
man, giving him power for independence, and we
expect him to make his own way. Papa would

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 83

rather have had Eddy work on the roads for his
bread than turn him into a faineant."

Valerie drew her lines into a square before say
ing, "I, you know, with Mr. Haliwell, am one of
your trustees. He tells me that your father gave
you a great deal. ' '

' ' Whatever I asked. He had perfect trust in me.
Our aims were the same. ' '

"And how did you spend it? Don't imagine that
I 'm finding fault."

"Oh, I know that you could n't well do that!"
said Imogen with a smile a little bitter. "I spent
very little on myself." And she continued, with
somewhat the manner of humoring an exacting
child: "You see, I helped a great many people; I
sent two girls to college ; I sent a boy — such a dear,
fine boy — for three years' art-study in Paris; he is
getting on so well. There is my girls' club on the
East side, my girls' club in Vermont; there is the
Crippled Children's Home,— quite numberless chari
ties I 'm interested in. It 's been one thing after
another, money has not lacked,— but time has, to
answer all the claims upon me. And then," here
Imogen smiled again, ' ' I believe in the claims of the
self, too, when they are disciplined and harmonized
into a larger experience. There has been music to
keep up ; friends to see and to make things nice for ;
flowers to send to sick friends ; concerts to send poor
friends to; dinners and lunches to give so that
friends may meet — all the thousand and one little
things that a large, rich life demands of one."

"Yes, yes," said Valerie, who had nodded at in-

84 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

tervals during the list. "I quite see all that. You
are a dear, generous child and love to give pleasure ;
and your father refused you nothing. It 's my
fault, too. My more mercenary mind should have
been near to keep watch. Because, as a result,
there 's very little, dear, very, very little."

' ' Oh, your being here would not have changed our
ideas as to the right way to spend money, mama.
Don't blame yourself for that. We should have
bled you, too!"

"Oh, no, you would n't," Valerie said quickly.
"I 've too much of the instinctive, selfish mother-
thing in me to have allowed myself to be bled for
cripples and clubs and artistic boys. I don't care
about them a bit compared to you and Eddy. But
this is all beside the mark. The question now is,
What are we to do? Because that generous, ex
pensive life of yours has come to an end, for the
present at all events."

Imogen at this sat silent for some moments, fixing
eyes of deep, and somewhat confused, cogitation
upon her mother 's face.

"Why— but — I supposed that you had minded for
Eddy and me, mama, ' ' she said at last.

' ' I have very little money, Imogen. ' '

Imogen hesitated, blushing a little, before saying,
"Surely you were quite rich when papa married
you."

' ' Hardly rich ; but, yes, quite well off. ' '

"And you spent it all— on yourself?"

Valerie's color, too, had faintly risen. "Not so
much on myself, Imogen, though I wish now that I

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 85

had been more economical; but I was ignorant of
your father's rather reckless expenditure. In the
first years of my marriage, before the selfish mother-
thing was developed in me, I handed a good deal of
my capital over to him, for his work, his various
projects; in order to leave him as free for these
projects as possible, I educated you and Eddy —
that, too, came out of my capital. And the building
of the house in Vermont swallowed a good deal of
money. ' '

Imogen's blush had deepened. "Of course," she
said, "there is no more reckless expenditure possi
ble—since you use the term, mama — than keeping
up two establishments for one family; that, of
course, was your own choice. But, putting that
aside, you must surely, still, have a good deal left.
See how you live; see how you are taken care of,
with a maid,— I 've never had a maid, papa, as you
know, thought them self-indulgences, — see how you
dress," she cast a glance upon the refinements of
her mother's black.

"How I dress, my child? May I ask what that
dress you have on cost you ? ' '

"I believe only in getting the best. This, for the
best, was inexpensive. One hundred dollars."

"Twenty pounds," Valerie translated, as if to im
press the sum more fully on her mind. "I know
that clothes over here are ruinous. Now mine cost
only eight pounds and was made by a very little
woman in London."

Imogen cast another glance, now of some helpless
wonder, at the dress.

86 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"Of course you are so clever about such things;
I should n't wish to spend my thought— and I
could n't spend my time— on clothes. And then the
standard of wages is so scandalously low in Europe ;
I confess that I would rather not profit by it. ' '

"I am a very economical woman, Imogen," said
Valerie, with some briskness of utterance. "My
cottage in Surrey costs me fifty pounds a year. I
keep two maids, my own maid, a cook, a gardener;
there 's a pony and trap and a stable-boy. I have
friends with me constantly and pay a good many
visits. Yet my income is only eight hundred pounds
a year. ' '

"Eight hundred— four thousand dollars," Imogen
translated, a note of sharp alarm in her voice.
"That, of course, would not be nearly enough for
all of us."

"Not living as you have, certainly, dear."

"But papa? Surely papa has left something? He
must have made money at his legal practice."

"Never much. His profession was always a by-
issue with him. I find that his affairs are a good
deal involved ; when all the encumbrances are cleared
off, we think, Mr. Haliwell and I, that we may se
cure an amount that will bring our whole income to
about five thousand dollars a year. If we go on
living in New York it will require the greatest care
to be comfortable on that. We must find a flat
somewhere, unless you cared to live in England,
where we could be very comfortable indeed, without
effort, on what we have. ' '

Imogen was keeping a quiet face, but her mother,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 87

with a pang of helpless pity and compunction, saw
tears near the surface, and that, to control them,
she fixed herself on the meaning of the last words.
' ' Live out of my own country ! Never ! ' '

"No, dear, I did n't think that you would want
to; I did n't want it for you, either; I only sug
gested it so that you might see clearly just where we
stand, and in case you might prefer it, with our
limited means. ' '

Imogen's next words broke out even more vehe
mently. "I can't leave this house! I can't! It is
my home. ' ' The tears ran down her face.

"My poor darling!" her mother exclaimed. She
rose quickly and came round the table to her, put
ting her arm around her and trying to draw her
near.

But Imogen, covering her eyes with one hand,
held her oft'. "It 's wrong. It 's unfair. I should
have been told before. ' '

"Imogen, / did not know. I was not admitted to
your father's confidence. I used to speak to you
sometimes, you must remember, about being care
ful."

"I never thought about it. I thought he made a
great deal — I thought you had a great deal of
money, ' ' Imogen sobbed.

"It is my fault, in one sense, I know," her mother
said, still standing beside her, her hand on her shoul
der. " If I had been here I could have prevented some
of it. But— it has seemed so inevitable. " The tears
rose in Valerie's eyes also; she looked away to con
quer them. "Don't blame me too much, dear. I

88 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

shall try to do my best now. And then, after all,
it 's not of such tragic importance, is it? We can be
very happy with what we have. ' '

Imogen wept on : ' ' Leave my home ! ' '

"There, there. Don't cry so. We won't leave it.
We will manage somehow. We will stay on here, for
a time at least — until you marry, Imogen. You will
probably marry," and Valerie attempted a softly
rallying smile, "before so very long."

But the attempt was an unfortunately timed one.
"Oh, mama! don't — don't — bring your horrible
European point of view into that, too!" cried
Imogen.

"What point of view? Indeed, indeed, dear, I
did n't mean to hurt you, to be indiscreet—

"The economic, materialistic, worldly point of
view— that money problems can be solved by a thing
that is sacred, sacred ! ' ' Imogen passionately de
clared, her face still hidden.

Her mother now guessed that the self-abandon
ment was over and that, with recovered control, she
found it difficult to pick up her usual dignity. The
insight added to her tenderness. She touched the
girl's hair softly, said, in a soothing voice, that she
had meant nothing, nothing gross or unfeeling, and,
seeing that her nearness was not, at the moment,
welcome, returned to her own place at the other end
of the table.

Imogen now dried her eyes. In the consternation
that her mother's statements had caused her there
had, indeed, almost at once, arisen the consoling
figure of Jack Pennington, and she did not know

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 89

whether she were the more humiliated by her own
grief, for such a mercenary cause, or by this stilling
of it, this swift realization that the cramped life need
last no longer, for herself, than she chose. To feel so
keenly the need of escape was to feel herself im
prisoned by the new conditions ; for never, never for
one moment, must the need of escape weigh with
her in her decision as to Jack's place in her life.
She must accept the burden, not knowing that it
would ever be lifted, and with this acceptance the
sense of humiliation left her, so that she could more
clearly see that she had had a right to her dismay.
Her crippled life would hurt not only herself, but
all that she meant to others— her beneficence, her
radiance, her loving power ; so hurt it, that, for one
dark moment, had come just a dart of severity
toward her father. The memory of her mother's
implied criticism had repulsed it; dear, wonderful,
transcendentalist, she must be worthy of him and
not allow her thoughts, in their coward panic, to
sink to the mother's level. This was the deepest call
upon her courage that had ever come to her. Calls
to courage were the very breath of the spiritual life.
Imogen lifted her heart to the realm of spirit, where
strength was to be found, and, though her mother,
with those implied criticisms, had pierced her, she
could now, with her recovered tranquility of soul,
be very patient with her. In a voice slightly muffled
and uncertain, but very gentle, she said that she
thought it best to live on in the dear home. "We
must retrench in other places, mama. I would
rather give up almost anything than this. He is here

90 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

to me." Her tears rose again, but they were no
longer tears of bitterness. ' ' It would be like leaving
him."

"Yes, dear, yes; that shall be as you wish," said
Valerie, who was deeply considering what these re
trenchments should be. She, too, was knowing a
qualm of humiliation over self -revelations. She had
not expected that it would be really so painful, in
such trivial matters, to adjust herself to the most
ordinary maternal sacrifices. It only showed her
the more plainly how fatal, how almost fatal, it
was to the right impulses, to live away from fam
ily ties; so that at their first pressure upon her,
in a place that sharply pinched, she found her
self rueful.

For the first retrenchment, of course, must be the
sending back to England of her dear, staunch Felkin,
who had taken such care of her for so many years.
Her heart was heavy with the thought. She was
very fond of Felkin, and to part with her would be,
in a chill, almost an ominous way, like parting with
the last link that bound her to "over there." Be
sides,— Valerie was a luxurious woman,— unpleasant
visions went through her mind of mud to be brushed
off and braid to be put on the bottoms of skirts;
stockings to darn — she was sure that it was loath
some to darn stockings; buttons to keep in their
places; all the thousand and one little rudiments of
life, to which one had never had to give a thought,
looming, suddenly, in the foreground of one's con
sciousness. And how very tiresome to do one's own
hair. Well, it could n't be helped. She accepted

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 91

the accompanying humiliation, finding no refuge in
Imogen's spiritual consolations.

"Eddy leaves Harvard this spring and goes into
Mr. Haliwell's office. He will live with us here,
then. And we can be very economical about food
and clothes ; I can help little dressmakers with yours,
you know, ' ' she said, smiling at her child.

"Everything, mama, everything must be done,
rather than leave this house."

"We must n't let the girls' clubs suffer, either,"
Valerie attempted further to lighten the other's
gloomy resolution. ' ' That 's one of the first claims. ' '

"I must balance all claims, with justice. I have
many other calls upon me, dear, and it will need
earnest thought to know which to eliminate. ' '

"Well, the ones you care about most are the ones
we '11 try to fit in."

"My caring is not the standard, mama. The
ones that need me most are the ones I shall fit in. ' '

Imogen rose, drawing a long, sighing breath. Un
der her new and heavy burden, her mother, in these
suggestions for the disposal of her life, was glib,
assured. But the necessity for tenderness and for
bearance was strongly with her. She went round
the table to Valerie, pressed her head to her breast
and kissed her forehead, saying, "Forgive me if I
have seemed hard, darling."

"No, dear, no; I quite understood all you felt,"
Valerie said, returning the kiss. But, after Imogen
had left her, she sat for a long time, very still, her
hand only moving, as she traced squares and circles
on her paper.

VIII

ACK thought that he had never seen
Imogen looking graver than on that
night when he came again. Her face
seemed calm only because she so com
pressed and controlled all sorts of agi
tating things. Her mother was with her in the lamp-
lit library and he guessed already that, in any case,
Imogen, before her mother, would rarely show gaiety
and playfulness. Gaiety and playfulness would
seem to condone the fact that her mother found so
little need of help in "bearing" the burden of her
regret and of her self-reproach. But, allowing for
that fact, Imogen's gravity was more than negative.
It confronted him like a solemn finger laid on firmly
patient lips ; he felt it dwell upon him like solemn
eyes while he shook hands with Mrs. Upton, whom
he had not seen since the morning of her arrival.

Mrs. Upton, too, was grave, after a fashion; but
her whole demeanor might be decidedly irritating
to a consciousness so burdened with a sense of change
as Imogen's evidently was. Even before that finger,
those eyes, into which he had symbolized Imogen's
manner, Mrs. Upton's gravity could break into a
smile quite undisturbed, apparently, by any inap-
propriateness. She sat near the lamp crocheting;
soft, white wool sliding through her fingers and

92

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 93

wave after wave of cloudy substance lengthening a
tiny baby's jacket, so very small a jacket that Jack
surmised it to be a gift for an expectant mother.
He further surmised that Mrs. Upton would be very
nice to expectant mothers; that they would like to
have her around.

Mrs. Upton would not curb her smile on account
of Imogen's manner, nor would she recognize it to
the extent of tacitly excluding her from the con
versation. She seemed, indeed, to pass him on, in
all she said, to Imogen, and Jack, once more, found
his situation between them a little difficult, for if
Mrs. Upton passed him on, Imogen was in no hurry
to receive him. He had, once or twice, the sensation
of being stranded, and it was always Mrs. Upton
who felt his need and who pushed him off into the
ease of fresh questions.

He was going back to Boston the next day and
asked Imogen if he could take any message to Mary
Osborne.

"Thank you, Jack," said Imogen, "but I write to
Mary, always, twice a week. She depends on my
letters."

"When is she coming to you again?"

"I am afraid she is not to come at all, now."

"You 're not going away?" the young man asked
sharply, for her voice of sad acceptance implied
something quite as sorrowful.

"Oh, no!" Imogen answered, "but mama does
not feel that I can have my friend here now. ' '

Jack, stranded indeed, looked his discomfort and,
glancing at Mrs. Upton, he saw it echoed, though

94 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

with a veiled echo. She laid down her work; she
looked at her daughter as though to probe the signifi
cance of her speech, and, not finding her clue, she
sat rather helplessly silent.

"Well," said Jack, with attempted lightness, "I
hope that I 'm not exiled, too."

"Oh, Jack, how cm you!" said Imogen. "It is
only that we have discovered that we are very, very
poor, and one's hospitable impulses are shackled.
Mama has been so brave about it, and I don 't want
to put any burdens upon her, especially burdens
that would be so uncongenial to her as dear, funny
Mary. Mama could hardly care for that typical
New England thing. Don't mind Jack, mama; he
is such a near friend that I can talk quite frankly
before him."

For Mrs. Upton was now gathering up her inno
cent work, preparatory, it was evident, to departure.

"You are not displeased, dear!" Imogen protested
as she rose, not angry, not injured— Jack was trying
to make it out— but full of a soft withdrawal.
"Please don't go. I so want you and Jack to see
something of each other. ' '

"I will come back presently," said Mrs. Upton.
And so she left them. Jack's thin face had flushed.

"She means that she won't talk quite frankly be
fore you, you see," said Imogen. "Don't mind,
dear Jack, she is full of these foolish little conven
tionalities; she cares so tremendously about the
forms of things ; I simply pay no attention ; that 's
the best way. But it 's quite true, Jack; I don't
know that I can afford to have my friends come and

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 95

stay with me any more. Apparently mama and
papa, in their so different ways, have been very ex
travagant; and I, too, Jack, have been extravagant.
I never knew that I must n't be. The money was
given to me as I asked for it — and there were so
many, so many claims, — oh, I can't say that I 'm
sorry that it is gone as it went. 'But now that we
are very poor, I want it to be my pleasures, rather
than hers, that are cut off ; she depends so upon her
pleasures, her comforts. She depends more upon
her maid, for instance, than I do even upon my
friends. To go without Mary this winter will be
hard, of course, but our love is founded on deeper
things than seeing and speaking ; and mama would
feel it tragic, I 'm quite sure, to have to do up her
own hair. ' '

"Good heaven, my dear Imogen J if you are so poor,
surely she can learn to do up her own hair ! ' ' Jack
burst out, the more vehemently from the fact that
Mrs. Upton's unprotesting, unexplanatory departure
had, to his own consciousness, involved him with
Imogen in a companionship of crudity and inappro-
priateness. She would not interfere with their
frankness, but she would not be frank with them.
She did n't care a penny for what his impression of
her might be. Imogen might fit as many responsi
bilities upon her shoulders as she liked and, with her
long training in a school of reticences and com
posures, she would remain placid and indifferent.
So Jack worked it out, and he resented, for Imogen
and for himself, such tact and such evasion. He wished
that they had been more crude, more inappropriate.

96 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Thank heaven for crudeness if morality as opposed
to manners made one crude. He entrenched himself
in that morality now, open-eyed to its seeming prig-
gislmess, to say, "And it 's a bigger question than
that of her pleasures and yours, Imogen. It 's a
question of right and wrong. Mary needs you.
Your mother ought not to keep a maid if other
people's needs are to be sacrificed to her luxuries."

Imogen was looking thoughtfully into the fire, her
calmness now not the result of mastery; her own
serene assurance was with her.

"I 've thought of all that, Jack; I 've weighed it,
and though I feel it, as you do, a question of right
and wrong, I don't feel that I can force it upon her.
It would be like taking its favorite doll from a child.
She is trying, I do believe, to atone ; she is trying to
do her duty by making, as it were, une acte de
presence; one wants to be very gentle with her ; one
does n't want to make things more difficult than
they must already seem. Poor, dear little mama.
But as for me, Jack, it 's more than pleasures
that I have to give up. I have to say no to some of
those claims that I 've given my life to. It 's like
cutting into my heart to do it. ' '

She turned away her head to hide the quiet tears
that rose involuntarily, and by the sight of her noble
distress, by the realization, too, of such magnanimity
toward the trivial little mother, Jack's inner emo
tion was pushed, suddenly, past all the bolts and
barriers. Turning a little pale, he leaned forward
and took her hand, stammering as he said: "Dear,
dearest Imogen, you know — you know what I want

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 97

to ask— whenever you will let me speak; you know
the right I want to claim — "

It had come, the moment of avowal ; but they had
glided so quietly upon it that he felt himself unpre
pared for his own declaration. It was Imogen's
tranquil acceptance, rather than his own eagerness,
that made the situation seem real.

"I know, dear Jack, of course I know, " she said.
"It has been a deep, a peaceful joy for a long time
to feel that I was first with you. Let it rest there,
for the present, dear Jack."

"I 've not made anything less joyful or less peace
ful for you by speaking ? ' '

"No, no, dear. It 's only that I could n't think
of it, for some time yet. ' '

"You promise me that, meanwhile, you will think
of me, as your friend, just as happily as before?"

"Just as happily, dear Jack; I could never, as
long as you are you and I am I, think of you in any
other way." And she went on, with her tranquil
radiance of aspect, "I have always meant, you
know, to make something of my life before I chose
what to do with it. ' '

Jack, too, thought Imogen's life a flower so pre
cious that it must be placed where it could best
bloom ; but, feeling in her dispassionateness a hurt
to his hope that it would best bloom in his care, he
asked: "Might n't the making something of it come
after the choice, dear ? ' '

Very clear as to what was her own meaning,
Imogen shook her lovely, unconfused head. "No,
only the real need could rightly choose, and one can

98 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

only know the real need when one has made the real
self."

These were Jack's own views, but, hearing them
from her lips, they chilled.

"It seems to me that your self, already, is very
real," he said, smiling a little ruefully. And
Imogen now, though firm, was very wonderful, for,
leaning to him, she put for a moment her hand on
his and said, smiling back with the tranquil tender
ness: "Not yet, not quite yet, Jack; but we trust
each other's truth, and we can't but trust,— I do,
dear Jack, with all my heart,— that it can never part
us."

He kissed her hand at that, and promised to trust
and to be patient, and Imogen presently lifted mat
ters back into their accustomed place, saying that
he must help her with her project for building a
country home for her crippled children. She had
laid the papers before him and they were deep in
Avays and means when a sharp, imperious scratch
ing at the door interrupted them.

Imogen's face, as she raised it, showed a touch of
weary impatience. "Mamma's dog," she said. "He
can't find her. Let him scratch. He will go away
when no one answers. ' '

"Oh, let 's satisfy him that she is n't here," said
Jack, who was full of a mild, though alien, consid
eration for animals.

"Can you feel any fondness for such wisps of
sentimentality and greediness as that?" Imogen
asked, as the tiny griffon darted into the room and
ran about, sniffing with interrogative anxiety.

99

"Not fondness, perhaps, but amused liking."

"There, now you see he will whine and bark to
be let out again. He is as arrogant and as trouble
some as a spoilt child. ' '

"I '11 hold him until she comes," said Jack. "I
say, he is a nice little beast— full of gratitude; see
him lick my hand." He had picked up the dog and
come back to her.

"I really disapprove of such absurd creatures,"
said Imogen. "Their very existence seems a wrong
to themselves and to the world. ' '

"Well, I don't know." Theoretically Jack agreed
with her as to the extravagant folly of such morsels
of frivolity ; but, holding the griffon as he was, meet
ing its merry, yet melancholy, eyes, evading its affec
tionate, caressing leaps toward his cheek, he could n't
echo her reasonable rigor. ' ' They take something the
place of flowers in life, I suppose."

"What takes the place of flowers?" Mrs. Upton
asked. She had come in while they spoke and her
tone of kind, mild inquiry slightly soothed Jack's
ruffled sensibilities.

"This," said he, holding out her possession to her.

' ' Oh, Tison ! How good of you to take care of
him. He was looking for me, poor pet."

"Imogen was wondering as to the uses of such
creatures and I placed them in the decorative cate
gory," Jack went on, determined to hold his own
firmly against any unjustifiable claims of either
Tison or his mistress. He accused himself of a
tendency to soften under her glance when it was
so kindly and so consciously bent upon him. Her

100 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

indifference cut him and made him hostile, and
both softness and hostility were, as he told himself,
symptoms of a silly sensitiveness. The proper atti
tude was one of firmness and humor.

"I am afraid that you don't care for dogs," Mrs.
Upton said. She had gone back to her seat, taking
up her work and passing her hand over Tison's silky
back as he established himself in her lap.

' ' Oh yes, I do ; I care for flowers, too, ' ' said Jack,
folding his arms and leaning back against the table,
while Imogen sat before her papers, observant of the
little encounter.

"But they are r\^t at all in the same category.
And surely," Mrs. Upton continued, smiling up at
him, "one does n't justify one's fondness for a crea
ture by its uses."

"I think one really must, you know," our ethical
young man objected, feeling that he must grasp his
latent severity when Mrs. Upton's vague sweetness
of regard was affecting him somewhat as her dog's
caressing little tongue had done. "If a fondness is
one we have a right to, we can justify it,— and it
can only be justified by its utility, actual or poten
tial, to the world we are a part of."

Mrs. Upton continued to smile as though she did
not suspect him of wishing to be taken seriously.
"One does n't reason like that before one allows
oneself to become fond. ' '

"There are lots of things we must reason about
to get rid of," Jack smiled back.

"That sounds very chiJly and uncomfortable. Be-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 101

sides, something loving, pretty, responsive — some
thing that one can make very happy— is useful to
one."

"But only that," Imogen now intervened, com
ing to her friend's assistance with decision. "It
serves only one's own pleasure; — that is its only use.
And when I think, mama darling, of all the cold,
hungry, unhappy children in this great town to
night,— of all the suffering children, such as those
that Jack and I have been trying to help, — I can't
but feel that your petted little dog there robs some
one."

Mrs. Upton, looking down at her dog, now asleep
in a profound content, continued to stroke him in
silence.

Jack felt that Imogen's tone was perhaps a little
too rigorous for the occasion. "Not that we want
you to turn Tison out into the streets," he said
jocosely.

"No; you must n't ask that of me," Valerie an
swered, her tone less light than before. "It seems
to me that there is a place for dear unreasonable
things in the world. All that Tison is made for is
to be petted. A child is a different problem."

"And a problem that it needs all our time, all
our strength, all our love and faith to deal with,"
Imogen returned, with gentle sadness. "You are
robbing some one, mama dear."

" Apparently we are a naughty couple, you and I,
Tison," Mrs. Upton said, "but I am too old and
you too eternally young to mend."

102 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

She had begun to crochet again; but, though she
resumed all her lightness, her mildness, Jack fancied
that she was a little angry.

When he was gone, Mrs. Upton said, looking up
at her daughter: "Of course you must have Mary
Osborne to stay with you, Imogen."

Imogen had gone to the fire and was gazing into it.
She was full of a deep contentment. By her atti
tude toward Jack this evening, her reception of his
avowal, she had completely vindicated herself.
Peace of mind was impossible to Imogen unless her
conscience were clear of any cloud, and now the
morning's humiliating fear was more than atoned
for. She was not the woman to clutch at safety
when pain threatened; she had spoken to him ex
actly as she would have spoken yesterday, before
knowing that she was poor. And, under this satis
faction, was the serene gladness of knowing him so
surely hers.

Her face, as she turned it toward her mother, ad
justed itself to a task of loving severity. "I cannot
think of having her, mama."

"Why not? She will add almost nothing to our
expenses. I never for a moment dreamed of your
not having her. I don't know why you thought it
my wish."

Imogen looked steadily at her: "Not your wish,
mama ? After what you told me this morning ? ' '

"I only said that we must be economical and
careful. ' '

"To have one's friends to stay with one is a
luxury, is not to be economical and careful. I don't

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 103

forget what you said of my expensive mode of life,
of my clothes— a reproof that I am very sure was
well deserved; I should not have been so thought
less. But it is not fair, mama, really it is not fair
— you must see that— to reproach me, and my father
—by implication, even if not openly — with our reck
less charities, and then refuse to take the responsi
bility for my awakening."

Imogen, though she spoke with emotion, spoke
without haste. Her mother sat with downcast eyes,
working on, and a deep color rose to her cheeks,

"I do want things to be open and honest between
us, mama," Imogen went on. "We are so very
different in temperament, in outlook, in conviction,
that to be happy together we must be very true
with each other. I want you always to say just
what you mean, so that I may understand what you
really want of me and may clearly see whether I
can do it or not. I have such a horror of any am
biguity in human relations. I believe so in the most
perfect truth."

Valerie was still silent for some moments after
this. When she did speak it was only of the prac
tical matter that they had begun with. "I do want
you to have your friends with you, Imogen. It will
not be a luxury. I will see that we can afford it. J '

"I shall be very, very glad of that, dear. I wish
I had understood before. You see, just now, before
Jack, I felt that you were hurt, displeased, by my
inference from our talk this morning. You made
me feel by your whole manner that you found me
graceless, tasteless, to blame in some way — perhaps

104 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

for speaking about it to Jack. Jack is very near
me, mama."

"But not near me."

"Ah, you made me feel that, too; and that you
reproached me with having, as it were, forced an
intimacy upon you. ' '

Valerie was drawing her dark brows together, as
though her clue had indeed escaped her. Imogen's
mind slipped from link to link of the trivial, yet
signficant, matter with an ease and certainty of
purpose that was like the movement of her own sleek
needle, drawing loop after loop of wool into a pat
tern ; but what Imogen 's pattern was she could
hardly tell. She abandoned the wish to make clear
her own interpretation, looking up presently with a
faint smile. "I 'm sorry, dear. I meant nothing of
all that, I assure you. And as to 'Jack,' it was only
that I did not care to seem to justify myself before
him— at your expense it might seem."

"Oh, mama dear!" Imogen laughed out. "You
thought me so wrong, then, that you were afraid of
harming his devotion to me by letting him see how
very wrong it was! Jack's devotion is very clear
sighted. It 's a devotion that, if it saw wrongs in
me, would only ask to show them to me, too, and to
stand shoulder to shoulder with me in fighting
them."

"He must be a remarkable young man," said
Valerie, quite without irony.

"He is like most real people in this country,
mama," said Imogen, on a graver note. "We
have, I think, evolved a new standard of devotion.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 105

We don't want to have dexterous mamas throw
ing powder in the eyes of the men who care for us
and sacrificing their very conception of right on the
altar of false maternal duty. The duty we owe to
any one is our truth. There is no higher duty than
that. Had I been as ungenerous, as unkind, as you,
I 'm afraid, imagined me this evening, it would
still have been your duty, to him, to me, to bring
the truth fearlessly to the light. I would have been
amused, had n't I been so hurt, to see you, as you
fancied, shielding me ! Please never forget, dear, in
the future, that Jack and I are truth-lovers. ' '

Looking slightly bewildered by this cascade of
smooth fluency, Valerie, still with her deepened
color, here murmured that she, too, cared for the
truth, but the current bore her on. "I don't think
you sec it, mama, else you could hardly have hurt
me so."

"Did I hurt you so?"

"Why, mama, don't you imagine that I am
made of flesh and blood? It was dreadful to me,
your leaving me like that, with the situation on my
hands."

Valerie, after another little silence, now repeated,
"I 'm sorry, dear," and, as if accepting contrition,
Imogen stooped and kissed her tenderly.

IX

(ART'S visit took place about six weeks
later, when Jack Pennington was again
in New York, and Mrs. Wake, re
turned from Europe, had been for some
time established in her little flat not
very far away in Washington Square.

The retrenchments in the Upton household had
taken place and Mary found her friend putting her
shoulder to the wheel with melancholy courage.
The keeping up of old beneficences meant redoubled
labor and, as she said to Mary, with the smile that
Mary found so wonderful : ' ' It seems to me now
that whenever I put my hand out to help, it gets
caught and pinched." Mary, helper and admirer,
said to Jack that the way in which Imogen had
gathered up her threads, allowing hardly one to
snap, was too beautiful. These young people, like
the minor characters in a play, met often in the
drawing-room while Imogen was busy up-stairs or
gone out upon some important errand. Just now,
Miss Bocock's lectures having been set going, the
organization of a performance to be given for the
crippled children's country home was engaging all
her time. Tableaux from the Greek drama had
been fixed on, the Pottses were full of eagerness,
and Jack had been pressed into service as stage-

106

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 107

manager. The distribution of roles, the grouping of
the pictures, the dressing and the scenery were in
his hands.

"It 's really extraordinary, the way in which,
amidst her grief, she goes through all this business,
all this organization, getting people together for her
committee, securing the theater," said Mary.
"Is n't it too bad that she can't be in the tableaux
herself ? She would have been the loveliest of all. ' '

Jack, rather weary, after an encounter with a
band of dissatisfied performers in the library, said:
"One could have put one's heart into making an
Antigone of her; that 's what I wanted — the filial
Antigone, leading OEdipus through the olive groves
of Colonus. It 's bitter, instead of that, to have to
rig Mrs. Scott out as Cassandra ; will you believe it,
Mary, she insists on being Cassandra — with that
figure, that nose ! And she has fixed her heart on
the scene where Cassandra stands in the car outside
the house of Agamemnon. She fancies that she is
a tragic, ominous type."

"She has nice arms, you know," said the kindly
Mary.

' ' Don 't I know ! ' ' said Jack. ' ' Well, it 's through
them that I shall circumvent her. Her arms shall
be fully displayed and her face turned away from
the audience."

"Jack, dear, you must n't be spiteful," Mary
shook her head a little at him. "I 've thought that
I felt just a touch of— of, well— flippancy in you
once or twice lately. You must n't deceive poor
Mrs. Scott. It 's that that is so wonderful about

108 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Imogen. I really believe that she could make her
give up the part, if she set herself to it ; she might
even tell her that her nose was too snub for it — and
she would not wound her. It 's extraordinary her
power over people. They feel, I think, the tender
ness, the disinterestedness, that lies beneath the
truth."

"I suppose there 's no hope of persuading her to
be Antigone ? ' '

"Don't suggest it again, Jack. The idea hurt
her so. ' '

' ' I won 't. I understand. When is Rose coming ? ' '

" In a day or two. She is to spend the rest of the
winter with the Langleys. What do you think of
for her?"

"Helen appearing between the soldiers, before
Hecuba and Menelaus. I only wish that Imogen
had more influence over Rose. Your theory about
her power does n 't hold good there. ' '

"Ah, even there, I don't give up hope. Rose
does n't really know Imogen. And then Rose is a
child in many ways, a dear, but a spoiled, child. ' '

"WThat do you think of Mrs. Upton, now that you
see something of her?" Jack asked abruptly.

"She is very sweet and kind, Jack. She is work
ing so hard for all of us. She is going to make my
robe. She is addressing envelopes now— and you
know how dull that is. I am sure I used to misjudge
her. But, she is very queer, Jack. ' '

"Queer? In what way queer?" Jack asked, plac
ing himself on the sofa, his legs stretched out before
him, his hands in his pockets.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 109

"I hardly know how to express it. She is so light,
yet so deep ; and I can 't make out why or where she
is deep ; it 's there that the queerness comes in. I
feel it in her smile, the way she looks at you; I be
lieve I feel it more than she does. She does n't know
she 's deep."

"Not really found herself yet, you think?" Jack
questioned ; the phrase was one often in use between
these young people.

Mary mused. "Somehow that does n't apply to
her— I don't believe she '11 ever look for herself."

"You think it 's you she finds," Jack suggested;
voicing a dim suspicion that had come to him once
or twice of late.

"What do you mean, exactly, Jack?"

"I 'm sure I don't know," he laughed a little.
"So you like her?" he questioned.

"I think I do; against my judgment, against my
will, as it were. But that does n't imply that one
approves of her."

"Why not?"

"Why, Jack, you know the way you felt about it,
the day you and I and Rose talked it over. ' '

"But we had n't seen her then. What I want to
know is just what you feel, now that you have seen
her."

Mary had another conscientious pause. "How
can one approve of her while Imogen is there ? ' ' she
said at last.

"You mean that Imogen makes one remember
everything?"

"Yes. And Imogen is everything she is n't."

110 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

' ' So that, by contrast, she loses. ' '

' ' Yes, and do you know, Jack, ' ' Mary lowered her
voice while she glanced up at Mrs. Upton's portrait,
"I can hardly believe that she has suffered, really
suffered, about him, at all. She is so unlike a
widow."

' ' I suppose she felt herself a widow long ago. ' '

"She had no right to feel it, Jack. His death
should cast a deeper shadow on her."

As Jack, shamefully, could see Mr. Upton as
shadow removed, he only said, after a slight pause :
"Perhaps that 's another of the things she does n't
obviously show — suffering, I mean."

"I 'm afraid that she 's incapable of feeling any
conviction of sin," said Mary, "and that wise, old-
fashioned phrase expresses just what I mean as to
a lack in her. On the other hand, in a warm
hearted, pagan sort of way, she is, I 'm quite sure,
one of the kindest of people. Her maid, when she
went back to England the other day, cried dreadfully
at leaving her, and Mrs. Upton cried too. I hap
pened to find them together just before Felkin went.
Now I had imagined, in my narrow way, that a
spoilt beauty was always a tyrant to her maid. ' '

' ' Oh, so her maid 's gone ! How does she do her
hair, then?"

"Do her hair, Jack? What a funny question.
As we all do, of course, with her wits and her hands,
I suppose. Any one with common-sense can do their
hair."

Jack kept silence, reflecting on the picture that
Imogen had drawn for him— the child bereft of its

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 111

toy. Had it given it up willingly, or had it been
forced to relinquish it by the pressure of circum
stance? Remembering his own stringent words, he
felt a qualm of compunction. Had he armed Imogen
for this ruthlessness ?

The lustrous folds of Mrs. Upton's hair, at lunch,
reassured him as to her fitness to do without Felkin
in that particular, but his mind still dwelt on the
picture of the crying child and he asked Imogen,
when he was next alone with her, how the departure
of Felkin had been effected.

"You could n't manage to let her keep the toy,
then?"

"The toy?" Imogen was blank.

He enlightened her. "Her maid, you know, who
had to do her hair. ' '

"Oh, Felkin! No," Imogen's face was a little
quizzical, "it could n't be managed. I thought it
over, what you said about sacrificing other people's
needs to her luxuries, and felt that you were right.
So I put it to her, very, very gently, of course, very
tactfully, so that I believe that she thinks that it
was she who initiated the idea. Perhaps she had
intended from the first to send her back; it was so
obvious that a woman as poor as she is ought not to
have a maid. All the same, I felt that she was a
little vexed with me, poor dear. But, apart from
the economical question, I 'm glad I insisted. It 's
so much better for her not to be so dependent on
another woman. It 's a little degrading for both of
them, I think."

Jack, who theoretically disapproved of all such

112 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

undemocratic gauds, was sure that Mrs. Upton was
much better off without her maid ; yet something of
the pathos of that image remained with him— the
child deprived of its toy; something, too, of dis
comfort over that echo of her father that he now
and then detected in Imogen's serene sense of right-
ness.

This discomfort, this uneasy sense of echoes, re
turned more than once in the days that followed.
Mrs. Upton seemed, as yet, to have made very little
difference in the situation; she had glided into it
smoothly, unobtrusively — a silken shadow ; when she
was among them it was of that she made him think ;
and in her shadowed quietness, as of a tranquil mist
at evening or at dawn, he more and more came to
feel a peace and sweetness. But it was always in
this sweetness and this peace that the contrasting
throb of restlessness stirred.

He saw her at the meals he frequently attended,
meals where the conversation, for the most part, was
carried on by Imogen. Mrs. Wake, also a frequent
guest, was a very silent one, and Mary an earnest
listener.

If Imogen 's talk had ceased to be very interesting
to Jack, that was only because he knew it so well.
He knew it so well that, while she talked, quietly,
fluently, dominatingly, he was able to remain the
dispassionate observer and to wonder how it im
pressed her mother. Jack watched Mrs. Upton, while
Imogen talked, leaning her head on her hand and
raising contemplative eyes to her daughter. Those
soft, dark eyes, eyes almost somnolent under their

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 113

dusky brows and half -drooped lashes,— how dif
ferent they were from Imogen's, as different as
dusk from daylight. And they were not really sad,
not really sleepy, eyes; that was the surprise of
them when, after the downcast mystery, they raised
to one suddenly their penetrating intelligence. The
poetry of their aspect was constantly contradicted
by the prose of their glance. But she did more than
turn her own poetry into prose, so he told himself;
she turned other people's into prose, too. Her
glance became to him a running translation into
sane, almost merry, commonplace, of Imogen's soar
ings. He knew that she made the translation and
he knew that it was a prose one, but its meaning she
kept for herself. It was when, now and then, he felt
that he had hit upon a word, a phrase, that the
discomfort, the bewilderment, came ; and he would
then turn resolutely to Imogen and grasp firmly his
own conception of her essential meaning, a meaning
that could bear any amount of renderings.

She was so beautiful, sitting there, the girl he
loved, her pearly face and throat, her coronet of
pale, bright gold, rising from the pathetic blackness,
that it might well be that the mother felt only his
own joy in her loveliness and could spare no margin
of consciousness for critical comment. She was so
lovely, so young, so good ; so jaded, too, with all the
labor, the giving of herself, the long thoughts for
others; why should n't she be dominant and as
sured? Why should n't she even be didactic and
slightly complacent ? If there was sometimes a trite
ness in her pronouncements, a lack of humor, of

114 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

spontaneity, in her enthusiasms, surely no one who
loved her could recognize them with any but the
tenderest of smiles. He felt quite sure that Mrs.
Upton recognized them with nothing else. He felt
quite sure that the "deepest" thing in Mrs. Upton
was the most intense interest in Imogen ; but he felt
sure, too, that the thing above it, the thing that
gazed so quietly, so dispassionately, was complete
indifference as to what Imogen might be saying.
Did n't her prose, with its unemphatic evenness,
imply that some enthusiasms went quite without
saying and that some questions were quite disposed
of for talk just because they were so firmly estab
lished for action ? When he had reached this point
of query, Jack felt rising within him that former
sense of irritation on Imogen's behalf, and on his
own. After all, youthful triteness and enthusiasm
were preferable to indifference. In the stress of this
irritation he felt, at moments, a shock of keen sym
pathy for the departed Mr. Upton, who had, no
doubt, often felt that disconcerting mingling of in
terest and indifference weigh upon his dithyrambic
ardors. lie often felt very sorry for Mr. Upton as
he looked at his widow. It was better to feel that
than to feel sorry for her while he listened to
Imogen. It did not do to realize too keenly, through
Imogen's echo, what it must have been to listen to
Mr. Upton for a lifetime. When, on rare occasions,
he had Mrs. Upton to himself, his impulse always
was to "draw her out," to extract from her what
were her impressions of things in general and what
her attitude toward life. She must really, by this

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 115

time, have enough accepted him as one of themselves
to feel his right to hear all sorts of impressions. He
was used to talking things over, talking them, in
deed, over and over ; turning them, surveying them,
making the very most of all their possible signifi
cance, with men and women to whom his relation
ship was half brotherly .and wholly comradely, and
whom, in the small, fresh, clear world, where he had
spent his life, he had known since boyhood. It was
a very ethical and intellectual little world, this of
Jack's, where impressions passed from each to each,
as if by right, where some suspicion was felt for
those that could not be shared, and where to keep
anything so worth while to oneself was almost to
rob a whole circle. Reticence had the distinct flavor
of selfishness and uncertainty of mind, the flavor of
laxity. If one were earnest and ardent and dis
ciplined one either knew what one thought, and
shared it, or one knew what one wanted to think,
and one sought it. Jack suspected Mrs. Upton of
being neither earnest, nor ardent, nor disciplined;
but he found it difficult to believe that, as a new
inmate of his world, she could n't be, if only she
would make the effort, as clear as the rest of it, and
that she was n't as ready, if manipulated with tact
and sympathy, to give and to receive.

Wandering about the drawing-room, while, as
usual in her leisure moments, she crocheted a small
jacket, Tison in her lap, he wondered, for instance,
what she thought of the drawing-room. He knew
that it was very different from the drawing-room in
her Surrey cottage, and very different from the

lid A FOUNTAIN SEALED

drawing-rooms with which, as he had heard from
Imogen, she was familiar in the capitals of Europe.
Mrs. Upton was, to-day, crocheting a blue border as
peacefully as though she had faced pseudo-Correg-
gios and crimson brocade and embossed wall-paper
all her life, so that either her tastes shared the indif
ference of her intelligence or else her power of self-
control was commendably complete.

"I hope that you are coming to Boston some day,"
he said to her on this occasion, the occasion of the
blue border. "I 'd like so much to show you my
studio there, and my work. I 'm not such an idler
as you might imagine."

Mrs. Upton replied that she should never for a
moment imagine him an idler and that since she was
going to Boston to stay with his great-aunt, a dear
but too infrequently seen friend of hers, she hoped
soon for the pleasure of seeing his work. "I hear
that you are very talented, ' ' she added.

Jack, who considered that he was, did not protest
with a false modesty, but went on to talk of the field
of art in general, and questioning her, skeptical as
to her statement that her artistic tastes were a mere
medley, he put together by degrees a conception of
vague dislikes and sharp preferences. But, in spite
of his persistence in keeping her to Chardin and
Japanese prints, she would pass on from herself to
Imogen, emphasizing her satisfaction in Imogen's
great interest in art. "It 's such a delightful bond
between people." And Mrs. Upton, with her more
than American parental discretion, smiled her ap
proval of such bonds.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 117

Jack reflected some moments before saying that
Imogen knew, perhaps, more than she cared. He
did n't think that Imogen had, exactly, the esthetic
temperament. And that there was no confidential
flavor in these remarks he demonstrated by adding
that it was a point he and Imogen often discussed ;
he had often told her that she should try to feel
more and to think less, so that Valerie might
amusedly have recalled Imogen's explanation to her
of the fundamental frankness that made lovers in
America such "remarkable young men." Jack's
frankness, evidently, would be restrained by neither
diffidence nor affection. She received his diagnosis
of her daughter's case without comment, saying
only, after a moment, while she turned a corner of
her jacket, "And you are of the artistic tempera
ment, I suppose ? ' '

"Well, yes," he owned, "in a sense; though not
in that in which the word has been so often misused.
I don't see the artist as a performing acrobat nor as
an anarchist in ethics, either. I think that art is
one of the big aspects of life and that through it
one gets hold of a big part of reality."

Mrs. Upton, mildly intent on her corner, looked
acquiescent.

"I think," Jack went on, "that, like everything
else in life worth having, it 's a harmony only at
tained by discipline and by sacrifice. And it 's es
sentially a social, not a selfish attainment; it widens
our boundaries of comprehension and sympathy; it
reveals brotherhood. The artist's is a high form of
service."

118 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

He suspected Mrs. Upton, while he spoke, of dis
agreement; he suspected her, also, of finding him
sententious ; but she continued to look interested, so
that, quite conscious of his didactic purpose and
amused by all the things he saw in their situation,
he unfolded to her his conception of the artist's
place in the social organism.

She said, finally, "I should have thought that art
was much more of an end in itself. ' '

''Ah, there we come to the philosophy of it," said
Jack. "It is, of course, a sort of mysticism. One
lays hold of something eternal in all achievement;
but then, you see, one finds out that the eternal is n 't
cut up into sections, as it were — art here, ethics
there— intellect yonder; one finds out that all
that is eternal is bound up with the whole, so that
you can't separate beauty from goodness and truth
any more than you can divide a man's moral sense
from his artistic and rational interests. ' '

' ' Still, it 's in sections for us, surely ? What very
horrid people can be great artists," Mrs. Upton half
questioned, half mused.

" Ah, I don 't believe it ! I don 't believe it ! " Jack
broke out. "You '11 find a flaw in his art, if you
find a moral chaos in him. It must be a harmony ! ' '

The corner was long since turned, and on a simple
stretch of blue Mrs. Upton now looked up at him
with a smile that showed him that whether she liked
what he said or not, she certainly liked him. It was
here that the slight bewilderment came in, to feel
that he had been upholding some unmoral doctrine
she would have smiled in just the same way; and

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 119

the bewilderment was greater on feeling how much
he liked her to like him. Over the didactic inten
tions, a boyish, an answering, smile irradiated his
face.

"I 'm not much of a thinker, but I suppose that
it does all come together, somehow," she said.

''I 'm sure that you make a great deal of beauty,
wherever you are," Jack answered irrelevantly.
"I 've heard that your cottage in England is so
charming. Mrs. Wake was telling me about it."

" It is a dear little place. ' '

He remembered, suddenly, that the room where
they talked contradicted his assertion, and, glancing
about it furtively, his eye traversed the highly
glazed surface of the Correggio. Mrs. Upton's
glance followed his. "I don't think I ever cared,
so seriously, about beauty, ' ' she said, smiling quietly.
"I lived, you see, for a good many years in this
room, just as it is." There was no pathos in her
voice. Jack brought it out for her.

" I am sure you hated it ! "

"I thought it ugly, of course; but I did n't mind
so much as all that. I did n 't mind, really, so much
as you would. ' '

' ' Not enough to try to have it right ? ' '

He was marching his ethics into it, and, with his
question, he felt now that he had brought Mr.
Upton right down from the wall and between them.
Mr. Upton had not minded the room at all, or had
minded only in the sense that he made it a matter
of conscience not to mind. And aspects of it Mr.
Upton had thought beautiful. And that Mrs. Upton

120 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

felt all this he was sure from the very vagueness of
her answer.

"That would have meant caring more for beauty
than for more important things in life. ' '

He knew that it was in horribly bad taste, but he
could n't help having it out, now that he had, invol
untarily, gone so far. "If you like Chardin, I 'm
sure that that hurts you," and he indicated the
pseudo-Correggio, this time openly.

She followed his gesture with brows of mildly
lifted inquiry. "You mean it 's not genuine?"

"That, and a great deal more. It 's imitation,
and it 's bad imitation ; and, anyway, the original
would be out of place here — on that wall-paper."

But Mrs. Upton would n 't be clear ; would n 't be
dr#wn; would n't, simply, share. She shook her
head ; she smiled, as though he must accept from her
her lack of proper feeling, repeating, "I did n't like
it, but, really, I never minded much." And he had
to extract what satisfaction he could from her final,
vague summing-up. "It went with the chairs— and
all the rest."

AM A," said Imogen, "who is Sir
Basil?" She had picked up a letter
from the hall table as she and Jack
passed on their way up-stairs after
their walk, and she carried it into the
library with the question.

Mrs. Upton was making tea beside the fire, Mrs.
Wake and Mary with her, and as Imogen held out
the letter with its English stamp and masculine
handwriting a dusky rose-color mounted to her face.
Indeed, in taking the letter from hep daughter's
hand, her blush was so obvious that a slight silence
of recognized and shared embarrassment made itself
felt.

It was Jack who felt it most. After his swiftly
averted glance at Mrs. Upton his own cheeks had
flamed in ignorant sympathy. He was able, in a
moment, to see that it might have been the fire, or
the tea, or the mere suddenness of an unexpected
question that had caused the look of helpless girlish-
ness, but the memory stayed with him, a tenderness
and a solicitude in it.

Imogen had apparently seen nothing. She went
on, pulling off her gloves, taking off her hat, glanc
ing at her radiant white and rose in the glass while

121

122 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

she questioned. "I remember him in your letters,
but remember him so little— a dull, kind old coun
try squire, the impression, I think. But what does
a dull, kind old country squire find to write about
so often?"

If Mrs. Upton could n't control her cheeks she
could perfectly control her manner, and though
Jack 's sympathy guessed at some pretty decisive irri
tation under it, he could but feel that its calm dis
posed of any absurd interpretations that the blush
might have aroused.

"Yes, I have often, I think, mentioned him in my
letters, Imogen, though not in those terms. He is a
neighbor of mine in Surrey and a friend."

"Is he clever?" Imogen asked, ignoring the cool
ness in her mother's voice.

"Not particularly."

"What does he do, mama?"

"He takes care of his property."

"Sport and feudal philanthropy, I suppose,"
Imogen smiled.

"Very much just that," Mrs. Upton answered,
pouring out her daughter 's tea.

Jack, who almost expected to see Imogen's brow
darken with reprobation for the type of existence
so described, was relieved, and at the same time
perturbed, to observe that the humorous kindliness
of her manner remained unclouded. No doubt she
found the subject too trivial and too remote for
gravity. Jack himself had a general idea that
serious friendships between man and woman were
adapted only to the young and the unmated. After

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 123

marriage, according to this conception, the sexes
became, even in social intercourse, monogamous, and
he could n't feel the bond between Mrs. Upton and
a feudal country squire as a matter of much im
portance. But, on the other hand, Mrs. Upton had
said "friend" with decision, and though the word,
for her, could not mean what it meant to people like
himself and Imogen — a grave, a beautiful bond of
mutual help, mutual endeavor, mutual rejoicing in
the wonder and splendor of life — even a trivial rela
tionship was not a fit subject for playful patronage.
It was with sharp disapprobation that he heard
Imogen go on to say, "I should like to meet a man
like that — really to know. One imagines that they
are as extinct as the dodo, and suddenly, if one goes
to England, one finds them swarming. Happy, deco
rative, empty people; perfectly kind, perfectly con
tented, perfectly useless. Oh, I don't mean your
Sir Basil a bit, mama darling. I 'm quite sure,
since you like him, that he is a more interesting
variation of the type. Only I can't help wondering
what he does find to write about. ' '

"I think, as I am wondering myself, I will ask
you all to excuse me if I open my letter, ' ' said Mrs.
Upton, and, making no offer of satisfying Imogen's
curiosity, she unfolded two stout sheets of paper and
proceeded to read them.

Imogen did not lose her look of lightness, but
Jack fancied in the steadiness of the gaze that she
bent upon her mother a controlled anger.

"One may be useful, Imogen, without wearing
any badge of usefulness," Mrs. Wake now observed.

124 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Her bonnet, as usual, on one side, and her hair
much disarranged, she had listened to the colloquy
in silence.

Imogen was always very sweet with Mrs. Wake.
She had the air of a full, deep river benignly willing
to receive without a ripple any number of such
tossed pebbles, to engulf and flow over them. She
had told Jack that Mrs. Wake's dry aggressiveness
did not blind her for a moment to Mrs. Wake's noble
qualities. Mrs. Wake was a brave, a splendid person,
and she had the greatest admiration for her; but,
beneath these appreciations, a complete indifference
as to Mrs. Wake's opinions and personality showed
always in her demeanor toward her. She was a
splendid person, but she was of no importance to
Imogen whatever.

"I don't think that one can be useful unless one
is actively helping on the world's work, dear Mrs.
Wake," she now said. "Mary, we have tickets for
Carnegie Hall to-morrow night; won't that be a
treat? I long for a deep draft of music."

"One does help it on," said Mrs. Wake, skipping,
as it were, another pebble, "if one fills one's place
in life and does one's duty."

Imogen now gave her a more undivided attention.
"Precisely. And one must grow all the time to do
that. One's place in life is a growing thing. It
does n't remain fixed and changeless— as English
conservatism usually implies. Are you a friend of
Sir Basil's, too?"

"I met him while I was with your mother, and I
thought it a pity we did n't produce more men like
him over here— simple, unself conscious men, con-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 125

tented to be themselves and to do the duty that is
nearest them."

' ' Anglomaniac ! ' ' Imogen smiled, sugaring her
second cup of tea.

Mrs. Wake flushed slightly. ''Because I see the
good qualities of another country ? ' '

11 Because you see its defects with a glamour over
them."

" Is it a defect to do well by instinct what we have
not yet learned to do without effort ? ' '

"Ah,— but the danger there is—" Jack here broke
in, much interested, "the danger there is that you
merge the individual in the function. When func
tion becomes instinctive it atrophies unless it can
grow into higher forms of function. Imogen 's
right, you know. ' '

"In a sense, no doubt. But all the same our de
fect is that we have so little interest except as indi
viduals. "

"What more interest can any one have than
that?"

"In older civilizations people may have all the
accumulated interest of the deep background, the
long past, that, quite unconsciously, they embody."

"We have the interest of the future."

"I don't think so, quite; for the individual, the
future does n't seem to count. The individual is
sacrificed to the future, but the past is, in a sense,
sacrificed for the individual ; in the right sort it 's
all there — summed up."

Imogen had listened, still with her steady smile,
to these heresies and to Jack's over-lenient dealing
with them. She picked up a review, turning the

126 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

pages and glancing through it while she said, ever
so lightly and gently :

"I think that you would find most aristocrats
against you in our country, dear Mrs. Wake. With
all the depth of our background, the length of our
past, you would find, in Jack and Mary and me, for
instance, that it 's our sense of the future, of our
own purposes for it, that makes our truest reality. ' '

Jack was rather pleased with this apt summing-
up, too pleased, in his masculine ingenuousness, to
feel that for Mrs. Wake, with no ancestry at all to
speak of, such a summing could not be very grati
fying. He did n't see this at all until Mrs. Upton,
folding her letter, came into the slightly awkward
silence that followed Imogen's speech, with the de
cisiveness that had subtly animated her manner since
Imogen's entrance. She remarked that the past, in
that sense of hereditary tradition handed on by hered
itary power, did n 't exist at all in America ; it was
just that fact that made America so different and so
interesting ; its aristocrats so often had the shallowest
of backgrounds. And in her gliding to a change of
subject, in her addressing of an entirely foreign
question to Mrs. Wake, Jack guessed at a little flare
of resentment on her friend's behalf.

Imogen kept her calm, and while her mother
talked to Mrs. Wake she talked to Mary ; but that the
calm was assumed she showed him presently when
they were left alone. She then showed him, indeed,
that she was frankly angry.

' ' One does n 't mind Mrs. Wake, ' ' she said ; "it 's
that type among us, the type without background,
without traditions, that is so influenced by the Euro-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 127

pean thing; you saw the little sop mama threw to
her— she an aristocrat!— because of a generation of
great wealth; that could be her only claim; but to
have mama so dead to all we mean ! ' '

Jack, rather embarrassed by the pressure of his
enlightenments, said that he had n't felt that; it
seemed to him that she did see what they meant, it
was their future that counted, in the main.

"A rootless future, according to her!"

"Why, we have our past; it 's the way we possess
it that 's new in the world ; that 's what she meant.
Any little advantage that you or I may have in our
half-dozen or so generations of respectability and
responsibility, is ours only to share, to make us tell
more in the general uplifting, ' '

"You think that you need say that to me, Jack!
As for respectability, that homespun word hardly
applies ; we do have lineage here, and in the Euro
pean sense, even if without the European power.
But that 's no matter. It 's the pressing down on
me of this alien standard, whether expressed or not,
that stifles me. I could feel mama's hostility in
every word, every glance. ' '

"Hardly hostility, Imogen. Perhaps a touch of
vexation on Mrs. Wake's account. You did n't mean
it, of course, but it might have hurt, what you said."

"That! That was a mere opportunity. Did n't
you feel and see that it was ? ' '

Jack's aspect now took on its air of serious and
reasonable demonstration.

"Well, you know, Imogen, you were a little tact
less about her friendship— about this Sir Basil."

He expected wonder and denial, but, on the con-

128 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

trary, after going to the window and looking out
silently for some moments, Imogen, without turning,
said, "It 's not a friendship I care about."

"Why not?" Jack asked, taken aback.

"I don't like it," Imogen repeated.

"Why under the sun should you dislike it? What
do you know about it, anyway ? ' '

Imogen still gazed from the window. "Jack, I
don't believe that mama is at all the woman to
have friends, as we understand the word. I don't
believe that it is simply a friendship. Yes, you may
well look surprised, "—she had turned to him now—
"I 've never told you. It seemed unfair to her.
But again and again I 've caught her whispers, hints,
fibout the sentimental attachments mama inspires.
You may imagine how I 've felt, living here with
him, in his loneliness. I don't say, I don't believe,
that mama was ever a flirt; she is too dignified, too
distinguished a woman for that ; but the fact remains
that whispers of this sort do attach themselves to
her name, and a woman is always to blame, in some
sense, for that. ' '

Jack, looking as startled as she had hoped he
would, gazed now with frowning intentness on the
ground and made no reply.

"As for this Sir Basil," Imogen went on, "I used
to wonder if he were another of these triflers with
the sanctity of love, and of late I 've wondered more.
He writes to her constantly. What can the bond
between mama and a man of that type be unless
it 's a sentimental one? And did n't you see her
blush to-day?"

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 129

Jack now raised his eyes to her and she saw that
he, at all events, was blushing. "I can't bear to
hear you talk like this, Imogen, ' ' he said.

Imogen's own cheeks flamed at the implied re
proach. "Do you mean that I must lock everything,
everything I have to suffer, into my own heart?
I thought that to you, Jack, I could say anything. ' '

"Of course, of course, dear. Only don 't think in
this way."

' ' I accuse her of nothing but accepting this sort of
homage. ' '

"I know; of course, — only not even to me.
They are friends. We have no right to spy upon
them ; it 's almost as if you had laid a trap for her
and then pointed her out to me in it. Oh, I know
that you did n't mean it so."

' ' Spy on her ! I only wanted to know ! ' '

"But your tone was, well, rather offensively—
humorous. ' '

"Can you feel that a friendship to be taken seri
ously ? The very kindest thing is to treat it lightly,
humorously, as I did. She ought to be laughed out
of tolerating such an unbecoming relationship. A
woman of her age ought not to be able to blush like
that."

Looking down again, still with his deep flush, Jack
said, "Really, Imogen, I think that you take too
much upon yourself. ' '

Imogen felt her cheeks whiten. She fixed her eyes
hard on his downcast face.

"It will be the last touch to all I have to bear,
Jack, if mama brings a misunderstanding between

130 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

you and me. If you can feel it fitting, appropriate,
that a widow of barely four months should en
courage the infatuation of a stupid old Englishman,
then I have no more to say. We have different con
ceptions of right and wrong, that is all." Imogen's
lips trembled slightly in pronouncing the words.

"I should agree with you if that were the case,
Imogen. I don't believe that it is."

"Very well. Wait and see if it is n't the case,"
said Imogen.

It was Jack who broached another subject, asking
her about some concerts she had gone to recently;
but, turned from him again and looking out into the
evening, her answers were so vague and chill, that
presently, casting a glance half mournful and half
alarmed upon her, he bade her good-by and left her.

Imogen stood looking out unseeingly, a sense of
indignation and of fear weighing upon her. Jack
had never before left her like this. But she could
not yield to the impulse to call out to him, run after
him, beg him not to go with a misunderstanding
unresolved between them, for she was right and he
was wrong. She had told him to wait and see if it
was n't the case, what she had said; and now they
must wait. She believed that it was the case, and
the thought filled her with a sense of personal humil
iation.

Since her summing up of the situation in the
library, not three months ago, that first quiet sense
of mastery had been much shaken, and now for
weeks there had been with her constantly a strange

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 131

gliding of new realizations. This one seemed the
last touch to her mother's wrongness— a wrongness
that had threatened nothing, had crushed down on
nothing, and that yet pervaded more and more the
whole of life — that she should bring back to her old
deserted home not a touch of penitence and the in
cense of absurd devotions. Friends of that sort,
middle-aged, dull Englishmen, did n't, Imogen had
wisely surmised, write to one every week. It was n't
as if they had uniting interests to bind them. Even
a literary, a political, a philanthropic, correspond
ence Imogen would have felt as something of an af
front to her father's memory, now, at this time;
such links with the life that had always been a sore
upon their family dignity should have been laid
aside while the official mourning lasted, so to speak.
But Sir Basil, she felt sure, had no mitigating inter
ests to write about, and the large, square envelope
that lay so often on the hall-table seemed to her like
a pert, placid face gazing in at the house of mourn
ing. To-day, yes, she had wanted to know, to see,
and suspicions and resentments from dim had be
come keen.

And now, to complete it all, Jack did not under
stand. Jack thought her unfair, unkind. He had
left her with that unresolved discord between them.
A sense of bereavement, foreboding, and desolation
filled her heart. On the table beside her stood a tall
vase of lilies that he had sent her, and as she stood,
thinking sad and bitter thoughts, she passed her
hand over them from time to time, bending her face

132 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

to them, till, suddenly, the tears rose and fell and,
closing her eyes, holding the flowers against her
cheek, she began to cry.

That was what she had meant to be like, the pure,
sweet aroma of these flowers, filling all the lives
about her with a spiritual fragrance. She did so
want to be good and lovely, to make goodness and
loveliness grow about her. It was hard, hard, when
that was what she wanted— all that she wanted— to
receive these buffets from loved hands, to see loved
eyes look at her with trouble and severity. It was
nothing, indeed,— it was, indeed, only to be expected,
—that her mother should not recognize the spiritual
fragrance ; that Jack should be so insensible to it
pierced her. And feeling herself alone in a blind
and hostile world, she sobbed and sobbed, finding
a sad relief in tears. She was able to think, while
she wept, that though it was a relief she must n't
let it become a weakness; must n't let herself slide
into the danger of allowing grief and desolation to
blur outlines for her. That others were blind
must n't blind her; that others did not see her as
good and lovely must not make her, with cowardly
complaisance, forswear her own clear consciousness
of right. She was thinking this, and her sobs were
becoming a little quieter, when her mother, now in
her evening tea-gown, came back into the room.

Imogen was not displeased that her grief should
have this particular witness. Besides all the deep,
unspoken wrongs, her mother must be conscious of
^mnller wrongs asainst her this afternoon, must
know that she had— well— tried to put her, as it were,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 133

in her place, first about the letter and then about
Mrs. Wake's lack of aristocratic instinct. She must
know this and must know that Imogen knew it.
These were trivial matters, not to be recognized be
tween them; and how completely indifferent they
were to her her present grief would demonstrate.
Such tears fell only for great sorrows. Holding the
flowers to her cheek, she wept on, turning her face
away. She knew that her mother had paused,
startled, at a loss; and, gravely, without one word,
she intended, in a moment, unless her mother should
think it becoming to withdraw, to leave the room,
still weeping. But she had not time to carry this
resolution into effect. Suddenly, and much to her
dismay, she felt her mother's arms around her,
while her mother's voice, alarmed, tender, tearful,
came to her : ' ' Poor darling, my poor darling, what
is it? Please tell me. "

Physical demonstrations were never pleasing to
Imogen, who, indeed, disliked being touched ; and now,
though she submitted to having her head drawn down
to her mother's shoulder, she could not feel that the
physical contact in any way bridged the chasm be
tween them. She felt, presently, from her mother's
inarticulate murmurs of compunction and pity, that
this was, apparently, what she had hoped for. It
was evidently with difficulty, before her child's un
responsive silence, that she found words.

"Is it anything that I 've done?" she questioned.
"Have I seemed cross this afternoon? I was a
little cross, I know. Do forgive me, dear."

Enveloped as she was in her mother's arms, so

134 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

near that she could feel the warmth and smoothness
of her shoulder througL. the fine texture of her gown,
so near that a fresh fragrance, like that from a bank
of violets, seemed to breathe upon her, Imogen found
it a little difficult to control the discomfort that the
contact aroused in her. "Of course I forgive you,
dear mama," she said, in a voice that had regained
its composure. "But, oh no!— it was not at all
for that— I hardly noticed it. It 's nothing that you
can help, dear. ' '

"But I can't bear to have you cry and not know
what 's the matter. ' '

"Your knowing would n't help me, would it?"
said Imogen, with a faint smile, lifting her hand to
press her handkerchief to her eyes.

"No, of course not; but it would help me— for my
sake, then. ' '

"Then, if it helps you, it was papa I was thinking
of. I miss him so." And with the words, that
placed before her suddenly a picture of her own
desolation, a great sob again shook her. "I 'm so
lonely now, so lonely." Her mother held her, not
speaking, though Imogen now felt that she, too,
wept, and a greater bitterness rose in her at the
thought that it was not for her dead father that the
tears fell but in pure weak sympathy and helpless
ness. She, herself, was the only lonely one. She
alone, remembered. She alone longed for him. In
this sharpened realization of her own sorrow she for
got that it had not been the actual cause of her grief.

"Poor darling; poor child," her mother said at
last. "Imogen, I know that I 've failed, in so much.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 135

But I want so to make up for things, if I can ; to be
near you ; to fill the loneliness a little ; to have you
love me, too, with time."

"Love you, my dear mother? Why, I am full of
love for you. Have n't you felt that?" Imogen
drew herself away to look her grieved wonder into
her mother's eyes. "Oh, mama, how little you
know me ! ' '

Valerie, flushed, the tears on her cheeks, oddly
shaken from her usual serenity, still clasped her
daughter's hands and still spoke on. "I know, I
know,— but it 's not in the way it ought to be. It 's
not your fault, Imogen; it 's mine; it must be the
mother's fault if she can't make herself needed.
Only you can't know how it all began, from so far
back— that sense that you did n't need me. But I
shirked; I know that I shirked. Things seemed too
hard for me — I did n't know how to bear them.
Perhaps you might have come almost to hate me, if
I had stayed, as things were. I 'm not making any
appeal. I 'm not trying to force anything. But I
so want you to know how I long to have my chance—
to begin all over again. I so want you to help. ' '

Imogen, troubled and confused by her mother's
soft yet almost passionate eagerness, that seemed to
pull her down to some childish, inferior place, just
as her mother's arms had drawn down her head to
an attitude incongruous with its own benignant lofti
ness, had yet been able, while she spoke, to gather
her thoughts into a keen, moral concentration upon
her actual words. She was accustomed, in moments
of moral stress, to a quick lifting of her heart and

136 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

mind for help and insight toward the highest that
she knew, and she felt herself pray now, "Help me
to be true, to her, for her." The prayer seemed to
raise her from some threatened abasement, and from
her regained height she spoke with a sense of assured
revelation. "We can't have things by merely want
ing them. To gain anything wye must work for it.
You left us. We did n't shut you out. You were
different. — You are different."

But her mother's vehemence was still too great to
be thrown back by salutary truths.

"Yes; that 's just it; we were different. It was
that that seemed to shut me out. You were with him
— against me. And I 'm not asking for any change
in you; I don't think that I expect any change in
myself, — I am not asking for any place in your heart
that is his, dear child; I know that that can't be,
should not be. But people can be different, and yet
near. They can be different and yet love each other
very much. That 's all I want— that you should see
how I care for you and trust me. ' '

"I do trust you, darling mama. I do see that
you are warm-hearted, full of kind impulses. But
I think that your life is confused, uncertain of any
goal. If you are to be near me in the way you crave,
you must change. And we can, dear, with faith and
effort. When you have found yourself, found a
goal, I shall feel you near."

"Ah, but don't be so over-logical, dear child.
You 're my goal ! ' ' Valerie smiled and appealed at
once.

Imogen, though smiling gravely too, shook her

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 137

head. "I 'm afraid that I 'm only your last toy,
mama darling. You have come over here to see
if you can make me happy, just as if you were re
furnishing a house. But, you see, my happiness
does n't depend on you."

"You are hard on me, Imogen."

"No; no; I mean to be so gentle. It 's such a
dangerous view of life — that centering it on some
one else, making them an end. I feel so differently
about life. I think that our love for others is only
sound and true when it helps them to power of ser
vice to some shared ideal. Your love for me is n't
like that. It 's only an instinctive craving. For
give me if I seem ruthless. I only want to help you
to see clearly, dear. ' '

Valerie, still holding her daughter's hands, looked
away from her and around the room with a glance
at once vague and a little wild.

"I don't know what to say to you," she mur
mured. "You make all that I mean wither." She
was sad ; her ardor had dropped from her. She was
not at all convicted of error ; indeed, she was trying,
so it seemed, to convict her, Imogen, of one.

Imogen felt a cold resistance rising within her to
meet this misinterpretation. "On the contrary,
clear," she said, "it is just the poetry, the reality of
life, in all its stern glory,— because it is and must be
stern if it is to be spiritual, — it is just that, it seems
to me, that you are trying to reduce to a sort of
pretty, facile lyric. ' '

Valerie still held the girl's hands very tightly, as
though grasping hard some dying hope. And look-

138 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

ing down upon the ground she stood silent for some
moments. Presently she said, not raising her eyes,
"I have won no right, I suppose, to be seen more
significantly by you. Only, I want you to under
stand that I don 't see myself like that. ' '

Again Imogen felt the unpleasant sensation of
being made to seem young and inexperienced. Her
mother's very quiet before exhortation; her sad re
lapse into grave kindliness, a kindliness, too, not
without its touch of severity, showed that she pos
sessed, or thought that she possessed, some inner
assurance for which Imogen could find no ground.
In answering her she grasped at all her own.

"I 'm very sure you don't," she said, "for I don't
for one moment misjudge your sincerity. And what
I want you to believe, my dear mother, is that I long
for the time when any strength and insight I may
have gained through my long fight, by his side, may
be of use to you. Trust your own best vision of
yourself and it will some day realize itself. I will
trust it too, indeed, indeed, I will. We must grow
if we keep a vision."

Mrs. Upton now raised her eyes and looked swiftly
but deeply at her daughter. It was a look that left
many hopes behind it. It was a look that armed
other, and quite selfless, hopes, with its grave and
watchful understanding. The understanding would
not have been so clear had it not been fed by all the
springs of baffled tenderness that only so could find
their uses. Giving her daughter's hands a final
shake, as if over some compact, perhaps over that of
growth, she turned away. Tison, who had followed

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 139

her into the room and had stood for long looking up
at the colloquy that ignored him, jumped against her
dress and she stooped and picked him up, pressing
her cheek against his silken side.

"You had better dress now, Imogen," she said, in
tones of astonishing commonplace. "You 've only
time. I 've kept you so long." And holding Tison
against her cheek she went to the window.

XI

ME tableaux were not to come off until
the end of April, and Jack, having set
things in motion, was in Boston at the
beginning of the month. It was at
this time that Mrs. Upton, too, was in
Boston, with her old friend and his great-aunt, and
it was at this time that he came, as he phrased it to
himself, really into touch with her.

Jack's aunt lived in a spacious, peaceful house on
the hill, and the windows of Jack's large flat, near by,
looked over the Common, the Gardens, the Charles
River, a cheerful, bird 's-eye view of the tranquil city,
breathed upon now by the first, faint green of spring.
Jack was pleased that Mrs. Upton and his aunt—
a mild, blanched old lady with silvery side-curls
under the arch of an old-fashioned bonnet — should
often come to tea with him, for in the arrangement
of his rooms— that looked so unarranged— he felt
sure that she must recognize a taste as fine and
fastidious as her own. He suspected Mrs. Upton of
finding him merely ethical and he was eager that
she should see that his grasp on life was larger than
she might imagine. His taste was fine and fastid
ious ; it was also disciplined and gracefully vagrant ;
she must see that in the few but perfect pictures and

no

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 141

mezzotints on his walls; the collection of old white
Chinese porcelain standing about the room on black
carved stands; in his wonderful black lacquer cabi
nets and in all the charming medley of the rare
and the appropriate.

Certainly, whatever was Mrs. Upton's impres
sion of him, she frequently expressed herself as
delighted with his rooms, and as they sat in the
deep window-seat, which commanded the view of
the city, he felt more and more sure that what
ever that impression of him might be, it rested
upon an essential liking. It was pleasant to Jack to
feel sure of this, little as he might be able to justify
to himself his gratification. Somehow, with Mrs.
Upton, he did n't find himself occupied with justi
fying things. The ease that she had always made
for him shone out, now, uninterruptedly, and as
they talked, while the dear old aunt sat near, turn
ing the leaves of a book, joining in with a word now
and then, it was, in the main, the soft, sweet sense of
ease, like the breath of violets in the air, that sur
rounded him. They talked of all sorts of things, or
rather, as he said to himself, they babbled, for real
talk could hardly be so discursive, so aimless, so
merely merry. She made him think of a child play
ing with a lapf ul of flowers ; that was what her talk
was like. She would spread them out in formal
rows, arrange them in pretty, intricate posies, or,
suddenly, gather them into generous handf uls which
she gave you with a pleased glance and laugh. It
was queer to find a person who took all "talk" so
lightly and who yet, he felt quite sure, took some

142 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

things hard. It was like the contrast between her
indolent face and her clear, unbiased gaze, that
would not flinch or deceive itself from or about any
thing that it met. Apparently most of the things that
it met she did n't take solemnly. The world, as far
as he could guess, was for her mainly made up of
rather trivial things, whether hours or people ; but,
with his new sense of enlightenment, he more and
more came to realize that it might be so made up
and yet, to her apprehension, be very bad, very sad,
and very worth while too. And after seeing her as
a child playing with flowers he could imagine her in
some suddenly heroic role — as one of the softly
nurtured women of the French Revolution, for in
stance, a creature made up of little gaieties, little
griefs; of sprigged silk and gossamer, powder and
patches ; blossoming, among the horrors of a hopeless
prison, into courageous graces. She would smile,
talk, play cards with them, those doomed ones, she
herself doomed; she would make life's last day
livable, in every exquisite sense of the word. And
he could see her in the tumbril, her arm round a
terrified girl; he could see her mounting the steps
of the guillotine, perhaps with no upward glance to
heaven, but with a composure as resolute and as
serene as any saint's.

These were strange visions to cross his mind as
they sat and talked, while she made posies for him,
and even when they did not hover he often found
himself dwelling with a sort of touched tenderness
upon something vaguely pathetic in her. Perhaps
it was only that he found it pathetic to see her look

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 143

so young when, measured beside his own contrasted
youth, he felt how old she was. It was pathetic that
eyes so clear should fade, that a cheek so rounded
should wither, that the bloom and softness and
freshness that her whole being expressed should be
evanescent. Jack was not given to such meditations,
having a robust, transcendental indifference to
earthly gauds unless he could fit them into ethical
significances. It was, indeed, no beauty such as
Imogen's that he felt in Mrs. Upton. He was not
consciously aware that her loveliness was of a subtler,
finer quality than her daughter's. She did not re
mind him of a Madonna nor of anything to do with
a temple. But the very fact that he could n't tabu
late and pigeon-hole her with some uplifting analogy
made her appeal the most direct that he had ever
experienced. The dimness of her lashes ; the Japan
ese-like oddity of her smile ; the very way in which
her hair turned up from her neck with an eddy of
escaping tendrils, — these things pervaded his con
sciousness. He did n't like to think of her being
hurt and unhappy, and he often wondered if she
was n 't bound to be both. He wondered about her a
great deal. He received, on every day they met,
hints and illuminations, but never the clear reveal-
ment that he hoped for. The thing that grew surer
and surer for him was her essential liking, and the
thing that became sweeter and sweeter, though the
old perplexity mingled with it, was the superficial
amusement he caused her. One of the things that,
he began to see, amused her a little was the cathol
icity of taste displayed in the books scattered about

144 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

his rooms, the volumes of French and Italian that
the great-aunt would take up while they talked.
They were books that she felt, he was quite sure, as
funnily incongruous with his whole significance, and
that their presence there meant none of the things
that in another environment they would have stood
for ; neither cosmopolitanism nor an unbiased con-
noisseurship interested in all the flowers— du mal
among the rest — of the human intelligence. That
they meant for him his own omniscient appreciation,
unshakenly sure of the ethical category into which
he could place each fruit, however ominous its
tainted ripeness; each flower, however freaked with
perverse tints, left her mildly skeptical; so that he
felt, with just a flicker of his old irritation, that the
very pl-enti fulness of esthetic corruption that he
could display to her testified for her to his essential
gxiilelessness, and, perhaps, to a blandness and nar
rowness of nature that lacked even the capacity for
infection. Jack had to own to himself that, though
he strove to make it rigorously esthetic, his seeing of
d'Annunzio— to take at random one of the fleurs du
mal — was as a shining, a luridly splendid warning
of what happened to decadent people in unpleasant
Latin countries. Such lurid splendor was as far
from him as the horrors of the Orestean Trilogy. In
Mrs. Upton's eyes this distance, though a distinct
advantage for him, was the result of no choice or
conflict, but of environment merely, and she prob
ably thought that the problems of Nietzschean ethics
were not to be solved and disposed of by people
whom they could never touch. But all the same, and

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 145

it was here that the atoning softness came in, he felt
that she liked him the better for being able to see a
fleur du mal only as if it were a weird pressed
product under a glass case. And if he amused her
it was not because of any sense of superior wisdom ;
she did n't deny her consciousness of wider con
trasts, but she made no claim at all for deeper in
sight; — the very way in which she talked over the
sinister people with him showed that,— asking him
his opinion about this or that and opening a volume
here and there to read out in her exquisite French
or Italian some passage whose full beauty he had
never before so realized. Any criticism or comment
that she offered was, evidently, of the slightest weight
in her own estimation ; but, there again one must re
member, so many things seemed light to Mrs. Upton,
so light, indeed, that he had often with her a sense
of pressures removed and an easier world altogether.

"The trouble with him— with all his cleverness
and beauty— is that his picture is n't true," Mrs.
Upton said of d'Annunzio, standing with a volume
in her hand in the clear afternoon light

"True to him," Jack amended, alert for the dis-
playal of his own comprehension.

"I can't think it. Life is always, for everybody,
so much more commonplace than he dares make it.
He is afraid of the commonplace ; he won 't face it ;
and the revenge life takes on people who do that,
people who are really afraid, people who attitudinize,
is to infect them in some subtle, mocking way with
the very thing they are trying to escape."

"Well, but he is n't commonplace."
10

146 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

" No ; worse ; he 's silly. ' ' She had put down the
book and taken up another, an older one. ' ' Clough,—
how far one must travel from d 'Annunzio to come to
him.

' It fortifies my eoul to know
That though I perish, Truth is so.' "

She meditated the Stoic flavor.

"The last word of heroism, of faith," Jack said,
thinking of the tumbril. But Valerie turned the leaf
a little petulantly. ' ' Heroism ? Why ? ' '

"Why, "—as usual he was glad to show her that,
if she really wanted to see clearly, he- could' show
her where clearness, of the best sort, lay, — "why,
the man who can say that is free. He has abdicated
every selfish claim to the Highest. ' '

"Highest? Why should it fortify my soul to
know that truth is 'so' if 'so' happens to be some
man-devouring dragon of a world-power?"

"Clough assumed, of course, that the truth was
high— as it might be, even if it devoured one."

"I 've no use for a truth that would have no better
use for me," smiled Valerie, and on this he tried
to draw her on, from her rejection of such
heroism, to some exposal of her own conception of
truth, her own opinions about life, a venture in
which he always failed. Not that she purposely
eluded. She listened, grave, interested, but, when
the time came for her to make her contribution, fin
gering about, metaphorically, in a purse, which,
though not at all empty, contained, apparently, a
confused medley of coinage. If she could have

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 147

found the right coin, she would have tendered it
gladly ; but she seemed to consider a vague chink as
all that could be really desired of her, to take it for
granted that he knew that he had lost nothing of
any value.

SOMETIMES he and Mrs. Upton, Tison trotting at
their heels, took walks together, passing down the
steep old streets, austere and cheerful, to the gar
dens and along the wide avenue with its lines of
trees and broad strip of turf, on and out to the
bridge that spanned the river. They enjoyed to
gether the view of the pale expanse of water, placidly
flowing in the windless sunshine, and, when they
turned to come back, their favorite aspect of the
town. They could see it, then, silhouetted in the
vague grays and reds of its old houses, climbing
from the purplish maze of tree-tops in the Common,
climbing with a soft, jostling irregularity, to where
the dim gold bubble of the State House dome
rounded on the sky. It almost made one think, so
silhouetted, of a Diirer etching.

"Dear place," Mrs. Upton would sigh restfully,
and that she was resting in all her stay here, resting
from the demands, the adjustments, of her new life,
he was acutely aware. Resting from Imogen. Yes,
why should n't he very simply face that fact? He,
too, felt, for the first time, that Imogen had rather
tired him and that he was glad of this interlude
before taking up again the unresolved discord where
they had left it. Imogen's last word about her
mother had been that very ominous "Wait and

148 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

see, ' ' and Jack felt that the discord had grown more
complicated from the fact that, quite without wait
ing, he saw a great deal that Imogen, apparently,
did not. He had seen so much that he was willing
to wait for whatever else he was to see with very
little perturbation of mind, and that, in the mean
while, as many Sir Basils as it pleased Mrs. Upton
to have write to her should do so.

But Mrs. Upton talked a great deal about Imogen,
so much that he came to suspect her of adjusting the
conversation to some supposed craving in himself.
She had never asked a question about his relations
with her daughter, accepting merely with interest
any signs they might choose to give her, but insinu
ating no hint of an appeal for more than they might
choose to give. She probably took for granted what
was the truth of the situation, that it rested with
Imogen to make it a definite one. She did not treat
him as an accepted lover, nor yet as a rejected one ;
she discriminated with the nicest delicacy. What she
allowed herself to see, the ground she went upon,
was his deep interest, his deep attachment. In that
light he was admitted by degrees to an intimacy
that he knew he could hardly have won so soon on
his own merits. She had observed him; she had
thought him over; she liked him for himself; but,
far more than this, she liked him for Imogen. He
often guessed, from a word or look, at a deep core of
feeling in her where her repressed, unemphatic, yet
vigilant, maternity burned steadily. From her
growing fondness for him he could gage how fond
she must be of Imogen. The nearness that this made
for them was wholly delightful to Jack, were it not

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 149

embittered by the familiar sense, sharper than ever
now, of self-questioning and restlessness. A year
ago, six months ago— no, three months only, just
before her own coming — how exquisitely such sym
pathy, such understanding would have fitted into all
his needs. He could have talked to her, then, by
the hour, frankly, freely, joyously, about Imogen.
And the restlessness now was to feel that it was just
because of her coming, because of the soft clear light
that she had so unconsciously, so revealingly, dif
fused, that things had, in some odd way, taken on a
new color, so that the whole world, so that Imogen
especially, looked different, so that he could n't any
longer be frank, altogether. It would have been part
of the joy, three months ago, to talk over his loving
perception of Imogen's little foibles and childish
nesses, to laugh, with a loving listener, over her little
complacencies and pomposities. He had taken them
as lightly as that, then. They had really counted
for nothing. Now they had come to count for so
much, and all because of that clear, soft light, that
he really could n't laugh at them. He could n't
laugh at them, and since he could n't do that he
must keep silence over them, and as a result the talks
about Imogen with Imogen's mother were, for his
consciousness, a little random and at sea. Imogen's
mother confidently based their community on a
shared vision, and that he kept back his real im
pression of what he saw was made all the worse by
his intuition that she, too, kept back hers, that she
talked from his supposed point of view, as it were,
and did n't give him a glimmer of her own. She
loved Imogen, or, perhaps, rather, she loved her

150 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

daughter ; but what did she think of Imogen ? That
was the question that had grown so sharp.

ON the day before he and Mrs. Upton went back to
gether to New York, Jack gave a little tea that was
almost a family affair. Cambridge had been one of
their expeditions, in Rose Packer's motor-car, and
there Eddy Upton had given them tea in his room
overlooking the elms of the "Yard" at Harvard.
Jack's tea was in some sort a return, for Eddy and
Rose both were there and that Rose, in Eddy's eyes,
did n't count as an outsider was now an accepted
fact.

Eddy had taken the sudden revelation of his
poverty with great coolness, and Jack admired the
grim resolution with which he had cut down ex
penses while relaxing in no whit his hold on the
nonchalant beauty. Poverty would, to a certain ex
tent, bar him out from Rose's sumptuous world, and
Rose did not seem to take him very seriously as a
suitor; but it was evident that Eddy did not intend
to remain poor any longer than he could possibly
help it and evident, too, that his assurance in regard
to sentimental ambitions had its attractions for her.
They chaffed and sparred with each other and under
the flippant duel there flashed now and then the
encounters of a real one. Rose denied the possession
of a heart, but Eddy's wary steel might strike one
day to a defenceless tenderness. She liked him,
among many others, very much. And she was, as
she frequently declared, in love with his mother.
Jack never took Rose seriously ; she remained for

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 151

him a pretty, trivial, malicious child ; but to-day he
was pleased by the evidences of her devotion.

The little occasion, presided over by Valerie,
bloomed for him. Everybody tossed nosegays, every
body seemed happy; and it was Rose, sitting in a
low chair beside Mrs. Upton's sofa, who summed it
up for him with the exclamation, " I do so love being
with you, Mrs. Upton ! What is it you do to make
people so comfortable?"

"She does n't do anything, people who do things
make one uncomfortable," remarked Eddy, loung
ing in his chair and eating sandwiches. "She is,
that 'sail."

"What is she then," Rose queried, her eyes fixed
with a fond effrontery on Valerie's face. "She 's
like everything nice, I know; nice things to look at,
to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch. Let us do her
portrait, Eddy, you know the analogy game. What
flower does she remind you of? and what food?
Acacia; raspberries and cream. What musical in
strument ? What animal ? Help me, Jack. ' '

"The musical instrument is a chime of silver
bells," said Jack, while Valerie looked from one to
the other with amused interest. ' ' And the animal is,
I think, a bird; a bright, soft-eyed bird, that flits
and poises on tall grasses."

"Yes; that does. And now we will do you, Jack.
You are like a very nervous, very brave dog. ' '

"And like a Christmas rose," said Valerie, "and
like a flute."

"And the food he reminds me of," finished Eddy,
' ' is baked beans. ' '

152 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"Good, " said Rose. "Now, Imogen. What flower
is she like? Jack, you will tell us. "

Jack looked suddenly like the nervous dog, and
Rose handsomely started the portrait with, "Calla
lily."

"That 's it," Eddy agreed. "And the food she 's
like is cold lemon-shape, you know the stuff I mean ;
and her animal,— there is no animal for Imogen;
she is too loftily human. ' '

"Her instrument is the organ," Rose finished, as
if to end as handsomely as she had begun; "the
organ playing the Pilgrims' March from "Tann-
hauser. ' '

"Excellent," said Eddy.

These young people had done the portrait without
help and after the slight pause with which their
analogies were received Jack swiftly summed up
Rose as Pdte-de-foie-gras, gardenia, a piano, and a
toy Pomeranian.

"Thanks," Rose bowed; "I enjoy playing impu
dence to your dignity."

"What 's Imogen up to just now?" Eddy asked,
quite unruffled by Jack's reflections on his beloved.
"When did you see her last, Jack?"

"I went down for a dress-rehearsal the day before
yesterday." Jack had still the air of the nervous
dog, walking cautiously, the hair of its back standing
upright.

"Oh, the Cripple-Hellenic affair. How Imogen
loves running a show. ' '

"And how well she does it," said Rose. "What
a perfect queen she would have made. She would

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 153

have laid corner-stones ; opened bazaars ; visited hos
pitals, and bowed so beautifully from a carriage —
with such a sense of responsibility in the quality of
her smile. ' '

''How inane you are, Rose," said Jack. "Noth
ing less queen-like, in that decorative sense, than
Imogen, can be imagined. She works day and night
for this thing in which you pretty young people get
all the sixpences and she all the kicks. To bear the
burden is all she does, or asks to do. ' '

' ' Why, my dear Jack, ' ' Rose opened widely candid
eyes, "queens have to work like fun, I can tell you.
And who under the sun would think of kicking
Imogen?"

"Besides," said Eddy, rising to saunter about the
room, his hands in his pockets, " Imogen is n't so
superhuman as your fond imagination paints her,
my dear Jack. She knows that the most decorative
role of all is just that, the weary, patient Atlas,
bearing the happy world on his shoulders. ' '

Mrs. Upton, in her corner of the sofa, had been
turning the leaves of a rare old edition, glancing up
quietly at the speakers while the innocent ripples
slid on from the afternoon's first sunny shallows to
these ambiguous depths. It was now in a voice that
Jack had never heard from her before that she said,
still continuing to turn, her eyes downcast:

' ' How excessively unkind and untrue, Eddy. ' '

Tf conscious of nnkindness, Eddy, at all events,
did n't resort to artifice as Rose,— Jack still smarted
from it,— had done. He continued to smile, taking
up a small, milky vase to examine it, while he an-

154 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

swered in his chill, cheerful tones: " Don't be up in
arms, mama, because one of your swans gives the
other a fraternal peck. Imogen and I always peck
at each other ; it 's not behind her back alone that I
do it. And I 'm saying nothing nasty. It 's only
people like Imogen who get the good works of the
world done at all. If they did n't love it, just; if
they did n't feel the delight in it that an artist feels
in his work, or that Rose feels in dancing better and
looking prettier than any girl in a ball-room,— that
any one feels in self-realization,— why, the cripples
would die off like anything. ' '

"It 's a very different order of self-realization";
Mrs. Upton continued to turn her leaves.

Jack knew that she was deeply displeased, and
mingled with his own baffled vexation was the relief
of feeling himself at one with her, altogether at one,
in opposition to this implied criticism of Imogen.
Together they shared the conviction— was it the
only one they shared about Imogen? — that she sim
ply cared about being good more than about any
thing else in the world; together they recognized
such a purpose and such a longing as a high and an
ennobling one.

The tone of her last remark had been final. The
talk passed at once away from Imogen and turned
on Jack's last acquisitions in white porcelain and
on his last piece of work, just returned from a
winter exhibition. Eddy went with him into the
studio to see it and Mrs. Upton and Rose were left
alone. It was then that Mrs. Upton, touching the
other's shoulder so that she looked up from the fur

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 155

she was fastening, said, "You are not a nice little
girl, Rose."

The "little girl" stared. Anything so suave yet
so firmly intended as unpleasant had never been ad
dressed to her. For once in her life she was at a
loss ; and after the stare she flushed scarlet, the tears
rushing to her eyes.

"Oh, Mrs. Upton," she faltered, "what do you
mean?"

' ' Hitting in the dark is n 't a nice thing to do. ' '

"Hitting in the dark?"

' ' Yes. You know quite well. ' '

"Oh, but really, really,— I did n't mean—" Rose
almost wailed. There was no escape from those clear
eyes. They did n 't look sad or angry ; they merely
penetrated, spreading dismay within her.

Mrs. Upton now took the flushed face between her
hands and gravely considered it. "Did n't you?"
she asked.

Rose could look back no longer. Before that gaze
a sense of utter darkness descended upon her. She
felt, helplessly, like a naughty, cowering child. Her
eyes dropped and the tears rolled down her cheeks.

' ' Please, please forgive me. I did n 't dream you 'd
understand. I did n 't mean anybody to understand,
except, perhaps, Eddy. I don't know why, it 's
odious of me— but Imogen does irritate me, just a
little, just because she is so good, you know — so
lovely."

But this, too, Mrs. Upton penetrated. "Whether
Imogen is so good and lovely that she irritates you
is another matter. But, whatever you may think of

156 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

her, don't, "—and here she paused a little over the
proper expressing of Rose's misdeed, — "don't call
her a calla lily," she found. And she finished,
"Especially not before her mother, who is not so
blind to your meaning as we must hope that Jack is. "

Poor Rose looked now like the naughty child after
a deserved chastisement.

' ' Oh, I am so miserable ' ' ; this statement of smart
ing fact was all she found to say. "And I do care
for you so. I would rather please you than any
one.— Can't you forgive me?"

But at this point the darkness was lifted, for Mrs.
Upton, smiling at last, put her arms around her,
kissed her, and said, "Be a nice little girl."

XII

f MO GEN, during this fortnight of her
mother's absence, had time to contem
plate her impressions of change.

Their last little scene together had
emphasized her consciousness of the
many things that lay beneath it.

Her mother had felt that the tears on that occa
sion were in part a result of the day's earlier en
counter, muffled though it was, over Sir Basil, and
had attempted, on ground of her own choosing, to
lure her child away from the seeing, not only of Sir
Basil— he was a mere symbol— but of all the things
whe-ie she must know that Imogen saw her as wrong.

"She wanted to blur my reason with instinct; to
mesh me in the blind filial thing," Imogen reflected.
In looking back she could feel with satisfaction that
her reason had dominated the scene as a lighthouse
beacon shines steadily over tossing and ambiguous
waters. Satisfaction was in the vision; the deep
content of having, as she would have expressed it,
"been true to her light." But it was only in this
vision of her own stability of soul that satisfaction
lay.

In Jack's absence, and in her mother's, she could
gage more accurately what her mother had done to
Jack. She had long felt it, that something different.

167

158 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

growing vaguely in him— so vaguely that it was like
nothing with a definite edge or shape, resembling,
rather, a shadow of the encompassing gloom, a
shadow that only her own far-reaching beams re
vealed. As the light hovers on the confines of the
dark she had felt— a silence.

He was silent— he watched. That was the sum
ming up of the change. He really seemed to convey
to her through his silence that he understood her
now, or was coming to, better than he had ever done
before, better than she understood herself. And
with the new understanding it was exactly as if he
had found that his focus was misdirected. He no
longer looked up ; Imogen knew that by the fact
that when, metaphorically, her eyes were cast down
to meet with approbation and sweet encouragement
his upturned admiration, vacancy, only, met their
gaze. He no longer — so her beam pierced further
and further— looked at her on a level, with the
frankness of mere mutual need and trust. No ; such
silence, such watchfulness implied superiority. The
last verge of shadow was reached when she could
make out that he looked at her from an affectionate,
a paternal, — oh, yes, still a very lover-like, — height,
not less watchful for being tender; not less steady
for being, still, rather puzzled. Beyond that she
could n't pierce. It was indeed a limit denoting a
silent revolution in their relationship. When she
came to the realization, Imogen, starting back, indig
nant through all her being, promised herself that if
he looked down she, at all events, would never lend
herself to the preposterous topsy-turvydom by look-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 159

ing up. She would firmly ignore that shift of focus.
She would look straight before her; she would look,
as she spoke, the truth. She "followed her gleam."
She stood beside her beacon. And she told herself
that her truth, her holding to it, might cost her a
great deal.

It was not that she feared to lose him, — if she
chose to keep him; but it might be that there were
terms on which she would not care to keep him. If,
it was still an almost unimaginable "if," he could
not, would not come once more to see clearly, then,
as lover, he must be put aside, and even as friend
learn that she had little use for a friendship so
warped from its old attitude.

Under this stoic resolve there was growing in poor
Imogen a tossing of confused pain and alarm. She
could see change so clearly, but causes were un-
traceable, an impalpable tangle.

Why was it so? What had happened? What,
above all, had her mother done to Jack?

It was all about her mother that change cen
tered, from her that it came. It was a web, a com
plexity of airy filaments that met her scrutiny.
Here hovered her mother's smile, here her thought
ful, observant silences. There Sir Basil's letter;
Felkin's departure; all the blurred medley of the
times when she had talked to Jack and Mary and
her mother had listened. A dimness, a haze, was
over all, and she only escaped it, broke through it,
when, fighting her way out to her own secure air
and sunlight, she told herself,— as, at all events, the
nearest truth to hand,— that it was about Jack, over

160 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

him, that the web had been spun : the web of a smile
that claimed nothing, yet that chained men ; the web
of a vague, sweet silence, that judged nothing, yet
softly blighted, through its own indifference, all
other people's enthusiasms. And again and again,
during these days of adjustment to the clear and the
confused vision, Imogen felt the salt hot tears burn
ing in her throat and eyes.

When Jack and her mother were both back again
and he and she united in the mechanical interests of
the tableaux, now imminent, the strangest loneliness
lay in the fact that she could no longer share her
grief, her fear, her anger, with Jack. He was there,
near her; but he was, far, far away; and she must
control any impulse that would draw him near.

She put him to the test; she measured his worth
by his power of recognition, his power of discrimina
tion between her mother's instinctive allurements
and her own high demand. But while with her mind
and soul, as she told herself, she thus held him away,
she was conscious of the inner wail of loneliness and
unconscious that, under the steady resolution, every
faculty, every charm she possessed, was spinning and
stretching itself out to surround and hold him.

She made no appeal, but he would feel her quiet
sadness weigh upon him ; she made no reproach, but
she knew that he could but be full of pity for her
weariness, of love for her devotedness, when her pale
profile bent by lamplight over all the tedious work
of the tableaux; knew that her patient "Good-night,
dear Jack,— I 'm too tired to stay and talk," must
smite him with compunction and uneasiness.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 161

It was no direct communication ; she used symbols
to convey to him the significance that he seemed to
be forgetting. She took him to one of Miss Bocock's
lectures, gently disowning praise for her part in
their success. She took him to the hospital for
cripple children, where the nurses smiled at her and
the children clambered, crutches and all, into her
lap, — she knew how lovely she must look, enfolding
cripple children. She took both her mother and him
to her Girls' Club on the East side, where they saw
her surrounded by adoring gratitude and enthu
siasm, where she sat hand in hand with her ' ' girls, ' '
all sympathy, all tenderness, all interest, — all the
things that Jack had loved her for and that he still,
of course, loved her for. Here she must seem to him
like a sister of charity, carrying high her lamp of
love among these dark lives. And she was careful
that their reflected light should shine back upon her.
"I want you to know a dear friend of mine, Jack,
Miss Mc-Ginty; and this, Evangeline, is my friend,
Mr. Pennington,"— so she would lead him up to one
of the girls, bold and gay of eye, highly decorated
of person. She knew that she left her reputation
in safe hands with Evangeline. "Are you a friend
of Miss Upton's? She 's fine. We 're all just crazy
about her." She had, as she went from them, the
satisfaction of hearing so much of Evangeline 's
crude but sincere pseon; they were all "just crazy"
about her.

And a further shining of light suggested itself to
her.

"Mamma darling," she said, as they were going
u

162 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

home in the clashing, clattering "elevated," "you
must n't think me naughty, but I had to ask them—
my own particular girls — to go with us to the Phil
harmonic. They are becoming so interested in their
music and it will be a treat for them, will really
mean something in their lives, will really live for
them, in them."

Mrs. Upton leaned forward to listen in the mingled
uproar of banging doors and vociferous announce
ments from the conductor. A look of uncertainty
crossed her face and Imogen hastened to add: "No,
it 's not the extravagance you think. I had a splen
did idea. I 'm going to sell that old ring that
Grandmamma Cray left me. Rose told me once that
I could get a lot of money for it. ' '

Swiftly flushing, her brows knitted, the din about
them evidently adding to her perturbation, Mrs.
Upton, with a sharpness of utterance that Jack had
never heard from her, said: "Your sapphire ring?
Your grandmother's ring? Indeed, indeed, Imogen,
I must ask you not to do that ! ' '

"Why, mama dear, why?" Imogen's surprise
was genuine and an answering severity was checked
by Jack's presence.

"It was my mother's ring."

"But what better use could I make of it, mama?
I rarely wear any ring but the beautiful pearl that
papa gave me."

"I could n't bear to have you sell it."

"But, mama dear, why? I must ask it. How
can I sacrifice so much for a mere whim ? ' '

"I must ask you to yield to a mere whim, then.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 163

Pray give up the thought. We will find the money
in some other way. ' '

"Of course, mama, if you insist, I must yield,"
Imogen said, sinking back in her seat beside the at
tentive Jack, and hoping that her mournful acquies
cence might show in its true light to him, even if her
mother's sentimental selfishness did n't. And later,
when he very prettily insisted on himself entertain
ing the club-girls at the Philharmonic, she felt that,
after all, no one but her mother had lost in the en
counter. The girls were to have their concert
(though they might have had many such, had not
her mother so robbed them, there was still that
wound) and she was to keep her ring; and she was
not sorry for that, for it did go well with the pearl.
Above all, Jack must have appreciated both her
generous intention and her relinquishing of it. Yet
she had just to test his appreciation.

"Indeed I do accept, Jack. I can't bear to have
them disappointed for a childish fancy, like that of
poor mama's, and we have no right to afford it by
any other means. Is n't it strange that any one
should care more for a colored bit of stone than for
some high and shining hours in those girls' gray
lives?"

But Jack said : ' ' Oh, I perfectly understand what
she felt about it. It was her mother's ring. She
probably remembers seeing it on her mother 's hand. ' '
So Imogen had, again, to recognize the edge of the
shadow.

They, ail of them, Jack, Mary, and her mother,
went with her and her girls to the concert. Jack

164 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

had taken two boxes in the semicircle that sweeps
round Carnegie Hall, overhanging the level sea of
heads below. Rose Packer, just come to town, was
next them, with the friends she was visiting in New
York, two pretty, elaborately dressed girls, frothing
with youthful high spirits, and their mother, an
abundant, skilfully-girthed matron. The Langleys
were very fashionable and very wealthy ; their houses
in America, England, Italy, their yachts and motor
cars, their dances and dinners, furnished matter for
constant and uplifted discourse in the society col
umns of the English-speaking press all over the
world. Every one of Imogen's factory girls knew
them by name and a stir of whispers and nudges
announced their recognition.

Mrs. Langley leaned over the low partition to
clasp Mrs. Upton's hand,— they had known each
other since girlhood, — and to smile benignly upon
Imogen, casting a glance upon the self-conscious,
staring girls, whose clothing was a travesty of her
own consummate modishness as their manners at
once attempted to echo her sweetness and suavity.

"What a nice idea,'« she murmured to Imogen;
"and to have them hear it in the best way possible,
too. Not crowded into cheap, stuffy seats."

"That would hardly have been possible, since I
do not myself care to hear music in cheap seats.
What is not good enough for me is not good enough
for my friends. To-day we all owe our pleasure to
Mr. Pennington."

Mrs. Langley, blandly interested in this creditable1

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 165

enlightenment, turned to Jack with questioning
about the tableaux.

''We are all so much interested in Imogen's in
terests, are n 't we ? It 's such an excellent idea. My
girls are so sorry that they can't be in them. Rose
tells me, Imogen, that there was some idea of your
doing Antigone. ' '

"None whatever," said Imogen, with no abate
ment of frigidity. She disapproved of leaders of
fashion.

"I only meant," Rose leaned forward, "that we
wanted you to, so much."

"And can't you persuade her? You would look
so well, my dear child. Talk her over, Valerie, you
and Mr. Pennington." Mrs. Langley looked back at
her friend.

"It would hardly do just now, I think," Valerie
answered.

"But for a charity— " Mrs. Langley urged her
mitigation with a smile that expressed, to Imogen's
irritated sensibilities, all the trite conformity of the
mammon-server.

"I don't think it would do," Valerie repeated.

"Pray don't think my motive in refusing a con
ventional one," said Imogen, with an irrepressible
severity that included her mother as well as Rose
and Mrs. Langley. These two sank back in their
seats and the symphony began.

Resting her cheek on her hand, her elbow on her
knee. Imogen leaned forward, as if out of the per
plexing, weary world into the sphere of the soul.

166 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

She smiled deeply at one of her girls while she fell
into the listening harmony of attitude, and her deli
cate face took on a look of rapt exaltation.

Jack was watching her, she knew ; though she did
not know that her own consciousness of the fact ef
fectually prevented her from receiving as more than
a blurred sensation the sounds that fell upon her ear.

She adjusted her face, her attitude, as a painter
expresses an idea through the medium of form, and
her idea was to look as though feeling the noblest
things that one can feel. And at the end of the first
movement, the vaguely heard harmony without re
sponding to the harmony of this inner purpose, the
music's tragic acceptance of doom echoing her own
deep sense of loneliness, the strange new sorrow
tangling her life, tears rose beautifully to her eyes;
a tear slid down her cheek.

She put up her handkerchief quietly and dried it,
glancing now at Jack beside her. He was making a
neat entry in a note-book, technically interested in
the rendering by a new conductor. The sight struck
through her and brought her soaring sadness to
earth. Anger, deep and gnawing, filled her. He
had not seen her tears, or, if he had, did not care
that she was sad. It was little consolation for her
hurt to see good Mary's eyes fixed on her with wide
solicitude. She smiled, ever so gravely and tenderly,
at Mary, and turned her eyes away.

A babble of silly enthusiasm had begun in the
Langley box and Rose had just effected a change of
seat that brought her next to her adored Mrs.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 167

Upton and nearer her dear Mary. Imogen almost
felt that hostile forces had clustered behind her back,
especially as Jack turned in his chair to talk to Mary
and her mother.

' ' Just too lovely ! ' ' exclaimed one of the younger
Miss Langleys, in much the same vernacular as that
used by Imogen's protegees.

She looked round at these to see one yawning
cavernously, on the cessation of uncomprehended
sound; while another's eyes, drowsed as if by some
narcotic, sought the relief of visual interest in the
late-comers who filed in below. A third sat in an
attitude of sodden preoccupation, breathing heavily
and gazing at the Langleys and at Rose, who wore
to-day a wonderful dress. Only a rounded little
Jewess, with eyes of black lacquer set in a fat, ac-
quiline face, quite Imogen's least favorite of her
girls, showed a proper appreciation. She was as
intent and as preoccupied as Jack had been.

The second movement began, a movement hurry
ing, dissatisfied, rising in appeal and aspiration,
beaten back; turning upon itself continually, con
tinually to rise again, — baffled, frustrated, yet in
domitable. And as Imogen listened her features
took on a mask-like look of gloom. How alone she
was among them all.

She was glad in the third movement, her mind in
its knotted concentration catching but one passage,
and that given with a new rendering, to emphasize
her displeasure by a little shudder and frown. An
uproar of enthusiasm arose after the movement and

168 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Imogen heard one of the factory girls behind her, in
answer to a question from her mother, ejaculate
"Fine!"

When her mother leaned to her, with the same
"Was n't it splendid?" Imogen found relief in
answering firmly, ''I thought it insolent."

"Insolent? That adagio bit?"— Jack, evidently,
had seen her symptoms of distress.— "Why, I
thought it a most exquisite interpretation. ' '

"So did I," said Mrs. Upton rather sadly from
behind.

"It hurt me, mama dear," said Imogen. "But
then I know this symphony so well, love it so much,
that I perhaps feel intolerantly toward new read
ings."

As the next, and last, movement began, she heard
Rose, under her breath yet quite loud enough, mur
mur, "Bunkum !" The ejaculation was nicely modu
lated to reach her own ears alone.

With a deepened sense of alienation, Imogen sat
enveloped by the unheard thunders of the final move
ment. Yes, Rose would hide her impertinence from
others' ears. Imogen had noted the growing tender
ness, light and playful, between her mother and the
girl. Behind her, presently, she rustled in all her
silks as she leaned to whisper something to Mrs. Up
ton— "You will come and have tea with me,— at
Sherry's,— all by ourselves?" Imogen caught.

Her mother was not the initiator, but her acquies
cence was an offense, and to Imogen, acutely con
scious of the whispered colloquy, each murmur ran
needles of anger into her stretched and vibrating

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 169

nerves. At last she turned eyes portentously
widened and a prolonged "Ss-s-s-h" upon them.

"People ought n't to whisper," Jack smiled com-
prehendingly at her, when they reached the end of
the symphony; the rest of the movement having
been occupied, for Imogen, with a sense of indignant
injury.

She had caught his attention, then, with her re
proof. There was sudden balm in his sympathy.
The memory of the unnoticed tear still rankled in
her, but she was able to smile back. "Some people
will always be the money-lenders in the temple."

At once the balm was embittered. She had
trusted too much to his sympathy. He flushed his
quick, facile flush, and she was again at the confines
of the shadow. Really, it was coming to a pass
when she could venture no least criticism, even by
implication, of her mother.

But, keeping up her smile, she went on: "You
don't feel that? To me, music is a temple, the cathe
dral of my soul. And the chink of money, the barter
ing of social trivialities, jars on me like a sacrilege."

He looked away, still with the flush. "Are n't we
all, more or less, worshipers or money-lenders by
turn? My mind often strays."

"Not to the glitter of common coin," she insisted,
urging with mildness his own bettor self upon him ;
for, yes, rather than judge her mother he would
lower his own ideal. All the more reason, then, for
her to hold fast to her own truth, and see its light
place him where it must. If he now thought her
priggish,— well, that did place him.

170 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

''Oh, yes, it does, often," he rejoined; but now
he smiled at her as though her very solemnity, her
very lack of humor, touched him; it was once more
the looking down of the shifted focus. Then he ap
pealed a little.

' ' You must n 't be too hard on people for not feel
ing as you do— all the time."

Consistency did not permit her an answer, for the
next piece had begun.

When the concert was over, Mrs. Langley offered
the hospitality of her electric brougham to three of
them. Rose and her girls were going to a tea close
by. Imogen said that she preferred walking and
Jack said that he would go with her; so Mary and
Mrs. Upton departed with Mrs. Langley and, the
factory girls dispatched to their distances by sub
way, the young couple started on their way down
crowded Fifth Avenue.

It was a bright, reverberating day, dry and cloud
less, and, as they walked shoulder to shoulder, their
heels rang metallically on the frosty pavements.
Above the sloping canon of the avenue, the sky
stretched, a long strip of scintillating blue. The
"Flat-Iron" building towered appallingly into the
middle distance like the ship prow of some giant in
vasion. The significance of the scene was of nothing
nobly permanent, but it was exhilarating in its ex
pression of inquisitive, adventurous life, shaping its
facile ideals in vast, fluent forms.

Imogen's face, bathed in the late sunlight, showed
its usual calm; inwardly, she was drawn tight and

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 171

tense as an arrow to the bow-head, in a tingling
readiness to shoot far and free at any challenge.

A surface constraint was manifested in Jack's
nervous features, but she guessed that his conscious
ness had not reached the pitch of her own acuteness,
and made him only aware of a difference as yet un
adjusted between them. Indeed, with a quiet inter
est that she knew was not assumed, he presently
commented to her on the odd disproportion between
the streaming humanity and its enormous frame.

' ' If one looks at it as a whole it 's as inharmonious
as a high, huge stage with its tiny figures before the
footlights. It 's quite out of scale as a setting for
the human form. It 's awfully ugly, and yet it 's
rather splendid, too."

Imogen assented.

"We are still juggling with our possibilities,"
said Jack, and he continued to talk on of the Amer
ican people and their possibilities— his favorite topic
—so quietly, so happily, even, that Imogen felt sud
denly a relaxation of the miserable mood that liad
held her during all the afternoon.

His comradely tone brought her the sensation of
their old, their so recent, relation, complete, un-
flawed, once more. An impulse of recovery rose in
her, and, her mind busy with the sweet imagination,
she said presently, reflectively, "I think I will do
your Antigone after all."

Completely without coquetry, and sincerely inno
cent of feminine wiles, Imogen had always known,
sub-consciously as it were, for the matter seldom as-

172 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

sumed the least significance for her, that Jack de
lighted in her personal appearance. She saw herself,
suddenly, in all the appealing youth and beauty of
the Grecian heroine, stamping on his heart, by means
of the outer manifestation, that inner reality to
which he had become so strangely blind. It was to
this revelation of reality that her thought clung, and
an added impulse of mere tenderness had helped to
bring the words to her lips. In her essential child
ishness where emotion and the drama of the senses
were concerned, she could not have guessed that the
impulse, with its tender mask, was the primitive one
of conquest, the cruel female instinct for holding
even where one might not care to keep. At the bot
tom of her heart, a realm never visited by her un
spotted thoughts, was a yearning, strangely mingled,
to be adored, and to wreak vengeance for the falter
ing in adoration that she had felt. Ah, to bind him !
—to bind him, helpless, to her ! That was the min
gled cry.

Jack looked round at her, as unconscious as she of
these pathetic and tigerish depths, but though his
eye lighted with the artist's delight in the vision that
he had relinquished reluctantly, she saw, in another
moment, that he hesitated.

"That would be splendid, dear,— but, can you go
back on what you said?"

"Why not? If I have found reason to reconsider
my first decision?"

"What reason? You must n't do it just to please
me, you know; though it 's sweet of you, if that is
the reason. Your mother, you see, agreed with you.

A FOUNTAIN SEALEo 173

I had n't realized that she would mind. You know
what she said, just now."

Jack had flushed in placing his objection and
Imogen, keeping grave, sunlit eyes upon him, felt
a flush rise to her own cheeks.

"Do you feel her minding, minding in such a
Way, any barrier?" She was able to control the
pain, the anger, that his hesitation gave her, the
quick humiliation, too, and she went on with only
a deepening of voice :

"Perhaps that minding of hers is part of my
reason. I have no right, I see that clearly now, to
withhold what I can do for our cause from any
selfish shrinking. I felt, in that moment when she
and Mrs. Langley debated on the conventional as
pect of the matter, that I would be glad, yes, glad,
to give myself, since my refusal is seen in the same
category as any paltry, social scruple. It was as if
a deep and sacred thing of one's heart were suddenly
dragged out and exhibited like a thickness of black
at the edge of one's note-paper.

"Will you understand me, Jack, when I say that
I feel that I can in no way so atone to that sacred
memory for the interpretation that was an insult ;
in no way keep it so safe, as by making it this offer
ing of myself. It is for papa that I shall do it. He
would have wished it. I shall think of him as I
stand there, of him and of the children that we are
helping."

She spoke with her deliberate volubility, neither
hesitating nor hurrying, her meaning, for all its
grandiloquence of setting, very definite, aud Jack

174 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

looked a little dazed, as though from the superabun
dance of meaning.

"Yes, I see,— yes, you are quite right," he said.
He paused for a moment, going over her chain of
cause and effect, seeking the particular link that the
new loyalty in him had resented. And then, after
the pause, finding it: "But I don't believe your
mother meant it like that," he added.

His eyes met Imogen's as he said it, and he al
most fancied that something swordlike clashed
against his glance, something that she swiftly with
drew and sheathed. It was earnest gentleness alone
that answered him.

"What do you think she did mean then, Jack's
Please help me to see if I 'm unfair. I only long to
be perfectly fair. How can I do for her, unless I
am?"

His smoldering resentment was quenched by a.
sense of compunction and a rising hope.

"That 's dear of you, Imogen," he said. "You
are, I think, unfair at times. It 's difficult to lay
one 's finger on it. ' '

"But please do lay your finger on it— as heavily
as you can, dear Jack."

"Well, the simile will do for my impression. The
finger you lay on her is too heavy. You exaggerate
things in her — over-emphasize things."

She was holding herself, forcing herself to look
calmly at this road he pointed out to her, the only
road, perhaps, that would lead her back to her old
place with him. "Admirable things, you think, if
one saw them truly?"

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 175

' ' I don 't know about admirable ; but warm, sweet
—at the worst, harmless. I 'm sure, to-day, that she
only meant it for you, for what she felt must be your
shrinking. Of course she had her sense of fitness,
too, a fitness that we may, as you feel, overlook when
we see the larger fitness. But her intention was
perfectly," — he paused, seeking an expression for
the intention and repeated, — "Sweet, warm, harm
less."

Imogen felt that she was holding herself as she
had never held herself.

"Don't you think I see all that, Jack?"

"Well, I only meant that I, since coming to know
her, really know her, in Boston, see it most of all."

"And you can't see, too, how it must stab me to
have papa— papa— put, through her trivial words,
into the category of black-edged paper ? ' '

Her voice had now the note of tears.

"But she does n't," he protested.

"Can you deny that, for her, he counts for little
more than the mere question of convention?"

Jack at this was, perforce, silent. No, he could n't
altogether deny it, and though it did not seem to him
a particularly relevant truth he could but own that
to Imogen it might well appear so. He did not
answer her, and there the incident seemed to end.
But it left them both with the sense of frustrated
hope, and over and above that Jack had felt, sharper
than ever before, the old shoot of weariness for
"papa" as the touchstone for such vexed questions.

XIII

US. UPTON expressed no displeasure,
although she could not control surprise,
when she was informed of Imogen's
change of decision, and Jack, watch
ing her as usual, felt bound, after the
little scene of her quiet acquiescence, to return with
Imogen, for a moment, to the subject of their dis
pute. Imogen had asked him to help her to see and
however hopeless he might feel of any fundamental
seeing on her part, he must n't abandon hope while
there was a stone unturned.

' ' That 's what it really was, ' ' he said to her. ' ' You
do see, don't you?— to respond to whatever she felt
you wanted. ' '

Imogen stared a little. "Of what are you talking,
Jack?"

"Of your mother Antigone— the black edge. It
was n't the black edge."

She had understood in a moment and was all
there, as fully equipped with forbearing opposition
as ever.

"It was n't even the black edge, you mean ? Even
that homage to his memory was unreal ? ' '

"Of course not. I mean that she wanted to do
what you wanted. ' '

176

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 177

"And does she think, do you think, it 's that I
want,— a suave adaptation to ideals she does n't even
understand ? No doubt she attributes my change to
girlish vanity, the wish to shine among the others.
If that was what I wanted, that would be what she
\vould want, too. ' '

"Are n't you getting away from the point a lit
tle?" he asked, baffled and confused, as he often was,
by her measured decisiveness.

"It seems to me that I am on the point. — The
point is that she cared so little about him— in either
way. ' '

This was what he had foreseen that she would
think.

"The point is that she cares so much for you," he
ventured his conviction, fixing his eyes, oddly deep
ened with this, his deepest appeal, upon her.

But Imogen, as though it were a bait thrown out
and powerless to allure, slid past it.

' ' To gain things we must work for them. It 's not
by merely caring, yielding, that one wins one's
rights. Mama is a very 'sweet, warm, harmless'
person ; I see that as well as you do, Jack. ' ' So she
put him in his place and he could only wonder if he
had any right to feel so angry.

The preparations for the new tableau were at once
begun and a few days after their last uncomfortable
encounter, Jack and Imogen were again together, in
happier circumstances it seemed, for Imogen, stand
ing in the library while her mother adjusted her
folds and draperies, could but delight a lover's eye.

Mary, also on view, in hrr handmaiden array,—
12

178 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Mary's part was a small one in the picture of the
restored Alcestis,— sat gazing in admiration, and
Jack walked about mother and daughter with sug
gestion and comment.

"It 's perfect, quite perfect," he declared, "that
warm, soft white ; and you have done it most beauti
fully, Mrs. Upton. You are a wonderful costu-
miere."

" Is n 't my chlamys a darling ? ' ' said Valerie hap
pily from below, where she knelt to turn a hem.

"Mama won't let us forget that chlamys," Imo
gen said, casting a look of amusement upon her
mother. "She is so deliciously vain about it."
Imogen was feeling a thrill of confidence and hope.
Jack's eyes, as they rested upon her, had shown the
fondest admiration. She was in the humor, so rare
with her of late, of gaiety and light assurance. And
she thirsted for words of praise and delight from
Jack.

"No wonder that she is vain," Jack returned.
"It has just the look of that heavenly garment that
blows back from the Victory of Samothrace. The
hair, too, with those fillets, you did that, I suppose."

"Yes, I did. I do think it 's an achievement. It
has the carven look that one wants. Imogen's hair
lends itself wonderfully to those long, sweeping
lines."

But, Jack, once having expressed his admiration
for Imogen, seemed tactlessly bent on emphasizing
his admiration for the mere craftswoman of the oc
casion.

"Well, it 's as if you had formed the image into

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 179

which I 'm to blow the breath of life. I 'm really
uncertain, yet, as to the best attitude. ' ' Imogen was
listening to this with some gravity of gaze. "Do
take that last position we decided upon, Imogen.
And do you, Mary, take the place of the faltering
old (Edipus for a moment. Look down, Imogen ; yes,
a strong, brooding tenderness of look. ' '

"Ah, she gets it wonderfully," said Valerie, still
at her hem.

"Not quite deep or still enough," Jack objected.
"Stand back, Mary, please, while we work at the
Expression. No, that 's not it yet. ' '

' ' But it 's lovely, so. You would have found fault
with Antigone herself, Jack, ' ' Mrs. Upton protested.

"Jack is quite right, mama, pray don't laugh
at his suggestions. I understand perfectly what he
means." Imogen glanced at herself in the mirror
with a grave effort to assume the expression de
manded of her. ' ' Is this better, Jack ? ' '

"Yes— no; — no, you can't get at all what I
mean," the young man returned, so almost pettishly
that Valerie glanced up at him with a quick flush.

Imogen's resentment, if she felt any, did not be
come apparent. She accepted condemnation with
dignified patience.

" I 'm afraid that is the best I can do now, though
I '11 try. Perhaps on the day of the actual per
formance it will come more deeply to me. There,
mama darling, that will do; it 's quite right now.
I can 't put myself into it while you sew down there.
I can hardly think that I 'm brooding over my tragic
father while I see your pins and needles. Now, Jack,

180 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

is this better?" With perfect composure she once
more took the suggested attitude and expression.

Mrs. Upton, her dusky flush deepened, rose, stum
bling a little from her long stooping, and, steadying
herself with her hand on a table, looked at the new
effort.

"No, — it 's worse. It 's complacent — self-con
scious," burst from Jack. "You look as if you were
thinking far more about your own brooding than
about your father. Antigone is self-forgetting; ab
solutely self-forgetting." So his rising irritation
found impulsive, helpless expression. In the slight
silence that followed his words he was aware of the
discord that he had crashed into an apparent har
mony. He glanced almost furtively at Mrs. Upton.
Had she seen— did she guess— the anger, for her,
that had broken into these peevish words? She met
his eyes with her penetrating depth of gaze, and
Imogen, turning to them, saw the interchange; saw
Jack abashed and humble, not before her own for
bearance but before her mother's wonder and se
verity.

Resentment had been in her, keen and sharp, from
his first criticism ; nay, from his first ignoring of her
claim to praise. It rose now to a flood of righteous
indignation. Sweeping round upon them in her
white draperies, casting aside — as in a flash she saw
it— petty subterfuge and petty fear, coldly, firmly,
she questioned him :

"I must ask you whether this is mere ill-temper,
Jack, or whether you intentionally wish to wound
me. Pray let me have the truth."

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 181

Speechless, confused, Jack gazed at her.

She went on, gaining, as she spoke, her usual re
lentless fluency.

"If you would rather that some one else did the
Antigone, pray say so frankly. It will be a relief to
me to give up my part. I am very tired. I have a
great deal to do. You know why I took up the added
burden. My motives make me quite indifferent to
petty, personal considerations. All that, from the
first, I have had in mind, was to help, to the best of
my poor ability. Whom would you rather have?
Rose?— Mary?— Clara Bartlett?— Why not mama?
I will gladly help any one of them with all that I
have learnt from you as to dress and pose. But I
cannot, myself, go on with the part if such malignant
dissatisfaction is to be wreaked upon me."

Jack felt his head rise at last from the submerging
flood.

"But, Imogen, indeed,— I do beg your pardon. It
was odious of me to speak so. No one can do the
part but you."

"Why say that, Jack, when you have just told me
that I do it worse and worse ? ' '

"It was only a momentary impression. Really,
I 'm ashamed of myself. ' '

"But it 's your impression that is the standard in
those tableaux. How can I do the part if I contra
dict your conception?"

"You can't. I was in a bad temper."

"And why, may I ask, were you in a bad temper?"

The gaze from her serene yet awful brows was
bent upon him, but under it, in a sudden reaction

182 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

from its very serenity, its very awfulness, a firm de
termination rose in him to meet it. Turning very
red but eyeing Imogen very straight: "I thought
you inconsiderate, ungrateful, to your mother, as
you often are," he said.

For a long moment Imogen was silent, glancing
presently at Mary — scarlet with dismay, her hastily
adjusted eye-glasses in odd contrast to her classic
draperies — and then turning her eyes upon her
mother who, still standing near the table, was frown
ing and looking down.

"Well, mama dear," she asked, "what have you
to say to this piece of information 1 Have I, all un
consciously, been unkind ? Have I been ungrateful ?
Do you share Jack's sense of injury?"

Mrs. Upton looked up as though from painful and
puzzling reflection. "My dear Imogen," she said,
"I think that you and Jack are rather self-righteous
young people, far too prone to discussing yourselves.
I think that you were a little inconsiderate; but
Jack has no call to take up my defense or to express
any opinion as to our relations. Of course you will
do the Antigone, and of course, when he recovers his
temper, — and I believe he has already, — he will be
very glad that you should. And now let 's have no
more of this foolish affair."

None of them had ever heard her make such a
measured, and, as it were, such a considered speech
before, and the unexpectedness of it so wrought
upon them that it reduced not only Jack but even
the voluble Antigone to silence. But in Jack's si
lence was an odd satisfaction, even an elation. He

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 183

did n't mind his own humiliation — that of an offi
cious little boy put in a corner— one bit ; for there in
the corner opposite was Imogen, actually Imogen,
and the sight of it gave him a shameful pleasure.

Meanwhile Mrs. Upton calmly resumed her work
at the hem, finished it, turned her daughter about
and pronounced it all quite right.

"Now get into warmer clothes and come down to
tea, which will be here directly," she said.

Imogen, by now, was recovered from the torpor of
her astonishment.

"Mary, will you come with me, I '11 want your
help." And then, as Mary, whom alone she could
count as an ally, joined her, she paused before de
parture, gathering her chlamys about her. "If I
am silent, mama, pray don't imagine that it is you
who have silenced me," she said. "I certainly could
not think of defending myself to you. My character,
with all its many faults, speaks for itself with those
who understand me and what I aim at. All I ask of
you, mama, is not to imagine, for a moment, that
you are one of those."

So Antigone, white, smiling, wrathful, swept away,
Mary behind her, round-eyed and aghast, and Val
erie was left confronting the overwhelmed Jack.

He could find not one word to say, and for some
moments Valerie, too, stood silent, slipping her
needle back and forth in her fingers and looking
hard at the carpet.

"It 's all my fault!" Jack burst out suddenly.
"Blundering, silly fool that I am ! Do say that you
forgive me."

184 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

She did not look at him, but, still slipping her
needle .with the minute, monotonous gesture back
and forth, she nodded.

' ' But say it, ' ' Jack protested. ' ' Scold me as much
as you please. It 's all true ; I 'm a prig, I know.
But say that you forgive me."

A smile quivered on her cheek, and putting out
her hand she answered: "There 's nothing to for
give, Jack. I lost my temper, too. And it 's all
mere nonsense. ' '

He seized her hand, and then, only then, realized
from something in the quiver of the smile, something
muffled in the lightness of her voice, that she was
crying.

' ' Oh ! " broke from him ; " oh ! what brutes we
are!"

She had drawn her hand from his in a moment,
had turned from him while she swiftly put her hand
kerchief to her eyes, and after the passage of the
scudding rain-cloud she confronted him clearly once
more.

"Why, it 's all my fault,— don't you know,— from
the beginning," she said.

He understood her perfectly. She had never been
so near him.

"You know that 's not true," he said. And then,
at last, his eyes, widely upon her, told her on which
side his sympathies were enlisted in the long-drawn
contest between, — not between poor Imogen and her
self, that was a mere result— but between herself and
her husband.

And that she understood his understanding be-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 185

came at once apparent to him. He had never seen
her blush as she blushed then, and when the deep
glow had passed she became very white and looked
very weary, almost old.

"No, I don't know it, Jack," she said. "And you,
certainly, do not. And now, dear Jack, don't let us
speak of this any more. Will you help me to clear
this table for the tea-things."

So this, for Imogen, was the result of her loving im
pulse during the frosty walk down Fifth Avenue.
All her sweet, wordless appeals had been in vain.
Jack had admired her as he might have admired a
marionette; her beauty had meant less to him than
her mother's dressmaking; and as she sat alone in
her room on that afternoon, having gently and firmly
sent Mary down to tea with the ominous message
that she cared for none, she saw that the shadow be
tween her and Jack loomed close upon them now, the
shadow that would blot out all their future, as a
future together. And Imogen was frightened, badly
frightened, at the prospect of that empty future.

Her fragrant branch of life that had bloomed so
fully and freshly in her hand, a scepter and a fairy
wand of beneficence, had withered to a thorny
scourge for her own shoulders. She looked about
her, before her. She realized \vith a new, a cutting
keenness, that Jack was very rich and she very poor.
The chill of poverty had hardly reached her as yet,
the warm certainty of its cessation had wrapped her
round too closely; but it reached her now, and the
thought of that poverty, unrelieved, perhaps, for all

186 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

her life, the thought of the comparative obscurity to
which it would consign her, filled her with a real
panic ; and, as before, the worst part of the panic was
that she should feel it, she, the scorner of material
things. Suppose, just suppose, that no one else came.
Everything grew gray at the thought. Charities,
friends, admiration, these were poor substitutes for
the happy power and pride that as a rich man's
adored wife would have been hers. And the fact
that had transformed her blossoming branch into the
thorny scourge was that Jack's adored wife she
would never be. His humbled, his submissive, his
chastened and penitent wife,— yes, on those terms;
yes, she could see it, the future, like a sunny garden
which one could only reach by squeezing oneself
through some painfully narrow aperture. The foun
tains, the flowers, the lawns were still hers — if she
would stoop and crawl; and for Imogen the mere
imagining of herself in such a posture brought a hot
blush to her forehead. Not only would she have
scorned such means of reaching the life of ample
ease and rich benevolence, but they were impossible
to her nature. A garden that one must crouch to
enter was a prison. Better, far better, her barren,
dusty, lonely life than such humiliation; such apos
tasy.

She faced it all often, the future, the panic, dur
ing the last days of preparation for the tableaux,
days during which, with a still magnanimity, she
fulfilled the tasks that she had undertaken. She
would not throw up her part because her mother and
Jack had so cruelly injured her ; it was now for her

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 187

father and for the crippled children alone that she
did it.

Sitting in her bedroom with its many books and
photographs, the big framed one of her father over
her bed, she promised him, her eyes on his, that she
would have strength to face it all, for all her life if
necessary. "It was too easy, I see that now," she
whispered to him. "I had made no real sacrifices
for our thing. The drop of black blood had never
yet been crushed out of my heart, — for when you
died, it was submission that was asked of me, not
sacrifice. It was easy, dear, to give myself to the
work we believed in — to be tired, and strong, and
glad for it — to live out bravely into the world—
when you were beside me and when all the means of
work were in my hand. But now I must relinquish
something that I could only keep by being false to
myself — to you— to the right. And I must go uphill
—'yes, uphill to the very end'— accepting poverty,
loneliness, the great need of love, unanswered. But
I won't falter or forget, darling father. As long as
I live I will fight our fight. Even if the way is
through great darkness, I carry the light in my
heart."

The noble pathos of such soliloquies brought her to
tears, but the tears, she felt, were strengthening and
purifying. After drying them, after reading some
of the deeply marked passages in the poets that he
and she,— and, oh, alas ! alas ! she and Jack, lost Jack
—had so often read together, she would go down
stairs, descend into the dusty, thorny arena again,
feeling herself uplifted, feeling a halo of sorrowful

188 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

benignity about her head. And this feeling was so
assured that those who saw her at these moments
were forced, to some extent, to share it.

Toward her mother, toward Jack, she showed a
gentle, a distant courtesy; to Mary a heartbreak
ing sweetness. Mary, perhaps, needed to have pet
tier impressions effaced, and certain memories could
but fade before Imogen's august head and unfalter
ing eyes.

If she had been wrong in that strange little scene
of the Antigone, Mary was convinced that her in
tention had been high. Jack had hurt her too much ;
that was it; and, besides, how could she know what
had gone on behind the scenes, passages between
mother and daughter that had made Imogen's atti
tude inevitable. So Mary argued with herself, sadly
troubled. "Oh, Imogen, please tell me," she burst
forth one day, the day before the tableaux, when she
was sitting with Imogen in the latter 's room; "what
is it that makes you so sad? Why are you so dis
pleased with Jack? You have n't given him up,
Imogen!"

Imogen passed her hand softly over Mary's hair,
recalling, as she did so, that the gesture was a fav
orite one with her father.

"Won't you, can't you tell me?" Mary pleaded.

"It is so difficult, dear. Given him up? No, I
never do that with people I have cared for; but he
is no longer the Jack I cared for. He is changed,
Mary."

"He adores you as much as ever,— of course I 've
always known how he adored you; it made me so

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 189

happy, loving you both as I do ; and he still adores
you I 'm sure. He is always watching you. He
changes color when you come into the room."

"He, too, knows and feels what ominous destinies
are hanging over us, Mary." The deeply marked
passages had been in Maeterlinck that day. "We
are parted, perhaps forever, because he sees at last
that I will not stoop. When one has grown up, all
one's life, straight, facing the sunrise, one cannot
bend and look down. ' '

"You stoop ! Why it 's that that he would never
let you do ! "

"No? You think that, after the other day? He
has stooped, Mary, to other levels. He breathes a
different air from mine now. I cannot follow him
into his new world. ' '

"You mean?— you mean? — " Mary faltered.

Imogen's clear eyes told her what she meant; it
did not need the slow acquiescence of her head nor
the articulated, "Yes, I mean mama.— Poor
mama. A little person can make great sorrows,
Mary."

But now Mary's good, limpid eyes, unfaltering
and candid as a child's, dwelt on her with a new
hope. "But, Imogen, it 's just that: is she so little?
She is n't like you, of course. She can't lift and
sustain, as you can. She does n't stand for great
things, as you do and as your father did. But 1
seem to feel more and more how much she could be
to you.— It only needs— more understanding; and,
if that 's all, I really believe, Imogen darling, that
you and Jack will be all right again. Perhaps,"

190 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Mary went on with a terrible unconsciousness, ' ' per
haps he has come to understand, already, better than
you do, — I thought that, really, the other day, — and
it 's that that makes the sense of division. You are
at different places of understanding. And he has n't
to remember, and get over, all the mistakes, the
faults in her past ; and perhaps it 's because of that
that he sees the present reality more clearly than
you do. Jack is such a wonderful person for seeing
the real self of people. ' '

Imogen's steady gaze, during this speech, con
tinued to rest unwaveringly upon her ; Mary felt no
warning in it and, when she had done, waited
eagerly for some echo to her faith.

But when Imogen spoke, it was in a voice that
revealed to her her profound miscalculation.

"You do not understand, Mary. You see noth
ing. Her present self is her past self, unchanged,
unashamed, unatoned for. It is her mistakes, her
faults, that Jack now stands for. It is her mistakes
and faults that / must stand for, if I am to be beside
him again. That would be the stooping that I
meant. I fear that not only Jack but you are
blinded, Mary. I fear that it is not only Jack but
you that she is taking from me." Her voice was
calm, but the steely edge of an accusation was in it.

Mary sat aghast. "Taking me from you! Oh,
Imogen, you don't mean that you won't care for me
if I get fond of her ! ' '

The crudely simple interpretation brought the
blood to Imogen's cheeks. "I mean that you can
hardly be fond of us both. It is not 7 who will

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 191

cease to care." Under the accusation was now an
added note of pain and of appeal. All Mary's faiths
rallied to that appeal.

"Imogen!" she said, timidly, like the wrong-doer
she felt herself to be, taking the other's hand;
"dear, brave, wonderful Imogen,— how can you—
how can you say it! Why there is hardly any one
in the world who has counted to me as you have.
Why, your mother is like a sweet child beside you!
She has n't faiths; she has n't that healing,
strengthening thing that I 've always so felt in you.
She could never mean what you do. Oh, Imogen!
you won't think such dreadful things, will you?
You do forgive me if I have blundered and hurt
you?"

Imogen drew in the fragrant incense with long
breaths; it revived her, filled her veins with new
courage, new hope. The two girls kissed solemnly.
They were going out together and they presently
went down-stairs hand in hand. But as an after-
flavor there lingered for Imogen, like a faint, flat
bitterness after the incense, a suspicion that Mary,
in wrafting her censer with such energy, had been
seeking to fill her own nostrils, also, with the sacred
old aroma, to find, as well as give, the intoxication
of faith.

XIV

IIR BASIL!" Valerie exclaimed.

She rose from the tea-table, where
she and Jack and Mrs. Wake were sit
ting, to meet the unexpected new
comer.

A gladness that Jack had never seen in her seemed
to inundate her face, her figure, her outstretched
hands ; she looked young, she looked almost childlike,
as she smiled at her friend over their clasp, and Jack
saw, by the light of that transfiguration, how gray
these last months must have been to her, how
strangely bereft of response and admiration, how
without savor or sweetness. He saw, and with the
insight came a sharp stir of bitterness against the
new-comer, who threw them all like this into a dull
background, and, at the same time, a real echo of her
gladness, that she should have it.

He actually, in the sharp, swift twist of feeling,
hardly remembered Imogen's forecasts and warn
ings, hardly remembered that Mrs. Upton's glad
ness and Sir Basil's beaming gaze put Imogen quite
dreadfully in the right. He did not think of Imogen
at all, nor of the desecration of the house of
mourning by this gladness, so absorbed was he in
watching it, in sharing it, and in being hurt by it,

102

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 193

' ' Mrs. Wake, of course, is an old friend, ' ' Valerie
said, leading Sir Basil up to the tea-table ; ' ' and here
is a new one— Jack Pennington, whom you must
quite know already, I 've written so much about him.
Sit down here. Tell me all about everything. Why
this sudden appearance? Why no hint of it? Is it
meant as a surprise for us ? "

"Well, Frances and Tom were coming over, you
knew that — "

' ' Of course. I wrote Frances a steamer letter the
day before yesterday. You got in this morning with
them then? They said not a word of your coming
when I last heard from them. ' '

"I only decided to join them at the last minute. I
thought that it would be good fun to drop upon you
like this, so I did n't write. It is good to see you
again." Sir Basil, while his beam seemed to include
the room and its inmates, included them unseeingly ;
he had eyes, it was evident, only for her. He went
on to give her messages from the Pakenhams, in
New York but for a week on their way to Canada
and eager to see her at once. They would have come
with him had they not been rather knocked up by
the early rise on the steamer and by the long wait
at the custom-house.

"You must all come with me to-morrow to our
tableaux," said Valerie. "Imogen is in them. She
is out this afternoon, so you will see her for the first
time at her loveliest. She is to be Antigone."

"Oh, so I sha'n't see her till to-morrow. I Ve al
ways been a bit afraid of Miss Upton, you know,"
said Sir Basil, with a smile at Jack.

13

194 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"Well, the first impression will be a reassuring
one," said Valerie. "Antigone is the least alarm
ing of heroines."

"I don't know about that," Sir Basil objected,
folding a slice of bread and butter, "A bit grue
some, don 't you think ? ' '

' ' Gruesome 1 ' '

' ' She stuck so to her own ideas, did n 't she 1 Aw
fully rough on the poor fellow who wanted to marry
her, insisting like that on burying her brothers."

Valerie laughed. "Well, but that sense of duty is
hardly gruesome ; it would have been horridly grue
some to have left her brothers unburied. "

"You '11 worst me in an argument, of course,"
Sir Basil replied, looking fondly at her; "but I
maintain that she 's a dreary young lady. Of course
I don't mean to say that she was n't an exceedingly
good girl, and all that sort of thing, but a bit of a
prig, you must allow."

Jack listened to the bantering colloquy. This
man, so hard, yet so kindly, so innocent, yet so
mature, was making him feel by every tone, gesture,
glance, oddly boyish and unformed. He was quite
sure that he himself was a great deal cleverer, a
great deal more conscious, than Sir Basil ; but these
advantages somehow assumed the aspect of school
boy badges of good conduct beside a grown-up stand
ard. And, as he listened, he began to understand
far more deeply all sorts of things about Valerie; to
see what vacancies she had had to put up with, to
see what fullness she must have missed. And he
began to understand what Imogen, Cassandra-like,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 195

had declared, that the unseasonable fragrance of
devotions hovered about her widowed mother ; to re
member the ominous ' ' Wait and see. ' '

It showed how far he had traveled when he could
recall these words with impatience ; could answer
them with: "Well, what of it? Does n't she deserve
some compensation?"— could quietly place Sir Basil
as a no longer hopeless adorer and feel a thrill of
satisfaction in the realization. Yes, sitting here
here in the house of mourning he could think these
things.

But if he was so wide, so tolerant, the very expan
sion of his sympathies brought them a finer sensitive
ness. Only a tendril-like fineness could penetrate
the complexities of that deeper vision. He began to
think of Imogen, and with a new pity, a new ten
derness. How she would be hurt, and how, more
than all, she would be hurt by seeing that he, while
understanding, while sympathizing, should, help
lessly, inevitably, be glad that Sir Basil had come.
Poor Imogen,— and poor himself; for where did he
stand among all these shiftings of the scene? He,
too, knew the drifting loneliness and desolation, and
though his heart ached for the old nearness he could
not put out his hand to her nor take a step toward
her. In himself, in her, was the change, or the mere
fate, that held them parted. The wrench had come
slowly upon them, but, while he ached with the pain
of it, he could already look upon it as accomplished.
Only one question remained to be asked:— Would
nothing, no change, no fate, draw them again to
gether ?

196 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

For all answer a deep, settled sadness descended
upon him.

Sir Basil took himself off before Mrs. Wake
seemed to think it tactful to depart, and since, soon
after, she too went, Jack and Valerie were left alone
together.

She turned her bright, soft eyes upon the young
man and he recognized in them the unseeing quality
that he had found in Sir Basil 's— that happy preoccu
pation with inner gladness. She made him think of
the bird alighted to sing on the swaying blade ; and
she made him think of a fountain released from
winter and springing through sunlight in a murmur
and sparkle of ecstasy. She was young, very young;
he almost felt her as young in her gladness as he
in his loneliness and pain. Smiling a trifle nerv
ously, he said that he was glad, at last, to see some
thing of her old life. ' ' Of your real life, ' ' he added.

"My real life?" she repeated, and her look became
more aware of him.

"Yes. Of course, in a sense, all this is something
outlived, cast aside, for you. You 've only taken it
up for a bit while you felt that it had a claim upon
you; but, once you have settled things, you would,—
you would leave us, of course," said Jack, still smil
ing.

She was thinking of him now, no longer of herself
and of Sir Basil, and perhaps, as she looked at him,
at the thin brown face, the light, deep eyes, she
guessed at a stir of tears under th« smile. It was
then as if the fountain sank from its own happy
solitude and became a running brook of sweetness,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 197

sad, yet merry. She did n't contradict him. She
was sorry that she could n't, yet glad that his state
ment should be so obviously true

"You mean that I '11 go back to my little Surrey
cottage, when I settle things ? ' ' she said. ' ' Perhaps,
yes. And you will miss me? I will miss you too,
dear Jack. But we will often see each other. And
then it may take a long time to settle all you young
people."

Her confidence so startled him, so touched him
with pity for its blindness, that, swiftly, he took
refuge in ambiguity.

"Oh, you '11 settle us!" he said, wondering in
what that settling would consist, wondering what
would happen if Imogen, definitely casting him off,
to put the final settling in that form, were left on
her mother 's hands. She would have to settle Imogen
in America and what, in the meanwhile, would be
come of her "real" life?

But from the mother's confidence, her radiance,
that accepted his speech in its happiest meaning, he
guessed that she did n't foresee such a contingency;
he even guessed that, were she brought face to face
with it, she would n't accept its unsettling of her
own joy as final. The fountain was too strong to
heed such obstacles. It would find its way to the
sunlight. Imogen, in time, would have to accept a
step-father.

XV

A.CK did not witness the revelation to
Imogen of the ominous arrival, but
from her demeanor at lunch next day
he could guess at how it had impressed
her. He felt in her an intense, a
guarded, excitement, and knew that the news had
fallen upon her with a tingling concussion. The
sound of the thunder-bolt must reverberate all the
louder in Imogen's ears from her consciousness that
to Mary's it was soundless, Mary, who had been the
only spectator of its falling. Her mother, too, was
unconscious of such reverberations, so that it must
seem to her a ghost-like subjective warning, putting
into audible form all her old hauntings.

That she at once sought in him evidences of the
same experience, Jack felt, and all through the early
lunch, where they assembled prior to his departure
with the two girls for the theater, he avoided meet
ing Imogen's eyes. He was too sure that she felt
their mutual knowledge as a bond over the recent
chasm. The knowledge in his own eyes was far too
deep for him to allow her to wade into it ; she would
simply drown. He was rather ashamed of himself,
but he resolutely feigned a cheerful unconsciousness.

108

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 199

"You are going with your friends, later?" he
asked Valerie, who, he was quite sure, also feigning
something, said that since Imogen and Mary dressed
each other so well, and since he would be there to
see that every detail was right, she, with the Paken-
hams and Sir Basil, would get her impression from
the stalls. Afterward, they would all meet here for
tea.

"It was a surprise, you know, their coming,"
Imogen put in suddenly, from her end of the table,
fixing strangely sparkling eyes upon Jack.

"No," said her mother, in tones of leisurely cor
rection, ' ' I expected the Pakenhams, as I told you. ' '

"Oh, yes; it was only Sir Basil's surprise. You
did n't expect him. Does he like playing surprises
on people, mama?"

"I don't know that he does."

"He only plays them on you."

' ' I knew that he was coming, at some time. ' '

' ' Ah, but you did n 't tell me that ; it was, in the
main, my surprise, then ; but not so soon, I suppose."

"So soon? So soon for what?"

Imogen, at this, allowed her badly adjusted mask
of lightness to fall and a sudden solemnity over
spread her features.

"Don't you feel it rather soon for friends to play
pranks, mama?"

The words seemed to erect a catafalque before their
eyes, but, facing the nodding blackness with a calm
in which Jack detected the glint of steel, Valerie an
swered : "I am not aware that they have been play
ing pranks."

200 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

For all the way to the theater Imogen again as
sumed the mask, talking exclusively to Mary. She
talked of these friends of her mother's, of Sir Basil,
Mr. and Mrs. Pakenham, what she had heard of
them; holding up, as if for poor, frightened Mary's
delectation, an impartial gaily sketched little portrait
of their oddities. It was as if she felt it her duty to
atone to Mary by her lightness and gaiety for the
gloom that had oversp read the lunch ; as if she wished
to assure Mary that she would n 't allow her to suffer
for other people's ill-temper, — Mrs. Upton had cer
tainly been very silent for the rest of that uncom
fortable meal, — as if it were for Mary's sake that she
were assuming the mask, behind which, as Jack must
know, she was in torture.

"I 'm glad you 're to see them, Mary darling;
they will amuse you. From your standpoint of
reality, the standpoint of Puritan civilization — the
deepest civilization the world has yet produced ; the
civilization that judges by the soul— you will be able
to judge and place them as few of our people are, as
yet, developed enough to do. They are of that funny
English type, Mary, the leisured ; their business in
life that of pleasure seeking ; their social service con
sisting in benevolent domination over the servile
classes beneath them. Oh, they have their political
business, too; we must n't be unfair; though that
consists, in the main, for people of their type, in
maintaining their own place as donors and in keep
ing other people in the place of recipients. In their
own eyes, I 'm quite sure, they are useful, as uphold
ing the structure of English civilization. You '11

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 201

find them absolutely simple, absolutely self-assured,
absolutely indifferent, quite charming, — there 's no
reason why they should n 't be ; but their good man
ners are for themselves, not for you, — one must
never forget that with the English. Do study them,
Mary. We need to keep the fact of them clearly be
fore us, for what they represent is a menace to us
and to what we mean. I sometimes think that the
future of the world' depends upon which ideal is to
win, ours or the English. We must arm ourselves
with complete comprehension. Already they have
infected the cruder types among us."

These were all sentiments that in the past, Mary
felt sure. Jack must have acquiesced in and ap
proved of, and yet she felt surer that Imogen's
manner of enunciating them was making Jack very
angry. She herself did not find them as inspiring
as she might have expected, and looking very much
frightened and flurried she murmured that as she
was to go back to Boston next day she would not
have much opportunity for all this observation. ' ' Be
sides—I don't believe that I 'm so— so wise— so
civilized, you know, as to be able to see it all. ' '

"Oh, Imogen will tell you what to see !" said Jack.

"It 's very kind of her, I 'm sure," poor Mary
faltered. She could have burst into tears. These
two !— these beloved two !

Meanwhile, at a little later hour, Valerie and Mrs.
Wake made their way to the theater, there to meet
the group of friends from whom they had parted in
England six months before.

The Pakenhams, full of question and comment,

202 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

were intelligently amassing well-assorted impressions
of the country that was new to them. Sir Basil,
though cheerfully pleased with all to which his at
tention was drawn, showed no particular interest in
his surroundings. His concentration was entirely
for his regained friend.

After her welcoming radiance of the day before,
Valerie looked pale and weary, and when, with solici
tude, he asked her whether she were not tired, she
confessed to having slept badly.

"She 's changed, you know," Sir Basil said to
Mrs. Pakenham, when they were settled in their
seats, and Valerie, beside him, was engaged in point
ing out people to Tom Pakenham. "It 's been fright
fully hard on her, all this, I 'm sure. ' '

"She 's as charming as ever," said Mrs. Paken
ham.

"Oh, well, that could never change. But what a
shame that she should have had, all along, such a lot
to go through." Sir Basil, as a matter of course,
had the deepest antipathy for the late Mr. Upton.

The tableaux struck at once the note of success.
Saved by Jack's skill from any hint of waxwork or
pantomime, their subtle color and tranquil light
made each picture a vision of past time, an evocation
of Hellenic beauty and dignity.

Cassandra in her car— her face (oh, artful Jack!)
turned away, — awful before the door of Agamem
non ; Iphigenia, sleeping, on her way to the sacrifice ;
Helen, before her husband and Hecuba; Alcestis, re
turning from the grave, and Deianira with the robe.
The old world of beauty and sorrow, austere and

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 203

lovely in its doom, passed before modern eyes against
its background of sky, grove, and palace steps.

"And now," said Valerie, when the lights sprang
out for the interval, "now for your introduction to
Imogen. They have made her the climax, you see. ' '

"He did, you mean. The young man."

''Yes, Jack arranged it all."

"He 's the one you wrote of, of course, who ad
mires her so tremendously. ' '

"He is the one."

"In fact he '11 carry her off from you some day,
soon, eh?" Sir Basil ventured with satisfaction in
his own assurance. He, too, felt that Imogen must
be "settled."

"I suppose so," said Valerie. "I could n't trust
her to any one more happily. He understands her
and cares for her absolutely."

Sir Basil at this ventured a little further, voicing
both satisfaction and anxiety with : ' ' So, then, you '11
come back— to— to Surrey."

"Yes, then, I think, I can come back to Surrey,"
Valerie replied.

The heart of her feeling had always remained for
him a mystery, and her acquiescence now might mean
a great deal, everything, in fact, or it might mean
only her gliding composure before a situation that
she had power to form as she would. He could ob
serve that her color rose. He knew that she blushed
easily. He knew, too, that his own feeling was not
hidden from her and that the blush might be
for her recognition only; yet he was occupied with
the most hopeful interpretations when the curtain

204 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

rose. A moment after its rising Valerie heard him
softly ejaculate, "I say!" She could have echoed
the helplessly rudimentary phrase. She, too, gazed,
in a stupor of delight ; a primitive emotion in it.
The white creature standing there before them, with
her forward poise, her downcast yet upgazing face,
was her child. Valerie, since her return to her home,
had given little time to analysis of her own feeling,
the stress of her situation had been too intense for
leisurely self -observation. But in the up welling of
a strange, a selfless, joy she knew, now, how often
she had feared that all the joy of maternity was
dead in her ; killed, killed by Imogen.

The joy now was a passing ray. The happy con
fusion of admiration, wonder, and pride was blotted
out by the falling gloom of reality. It was her child
who stood there, but the bond between them seemed,
but for the ache of rejected maternity at her heart,
a pictorial one merely. Tears of bitterness involun
tarily filled her eyes as she looked, and Imogen's
form seemed to waver in a dim, an alien atmosphere.

When the curtain fell on the Antigone who kept
her pose without a tremor, the uproar of applause
was so great that it had to rise, not only twice, but
three times. At the last, a faint wavering shook
slightly the Antigone's sculptured stillness and poor
old CEdipus rocked obviously upon his feet.

"What a shame to make her keep it up for so
long!" murmured Sir Basil, his face suffused with
sympathy. The symptom of human weakness was a
final touch to the enchantment.

' ' Well, it makes one selfish, such loveliness ! ' ' said

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 205

Mrs. Pakenham, flushed with her clapping. ' ' Valerie,
dear, she is quite too lovely ! ' '

''Extraordinarily Greek, the whole thing," said
Tom Pakenham; "the comparative insignificance of
facial expression and the immense significance of at
titude and outline. ' '

"But the face!" Sir Basil turned an unseeing
eye upon him, still wrapped, it was evident, in the
vision that, at last, had disappeared. ' ' The figure is
perfect; but the face, — I never saw anything so
heavenly."

Indeed, in its slightly downcast pose, the trivial
lines of Imogen's nose and chin had been lost; the
up-gazing eyes, the sweep of brow and hair, had
dominated and transfigured her somewhat tamely
perfect countenance.

"Do you know, I 'm more afraid of her than
ever," said Sir Basil to Valerie on their way home
to tea, in the cab. "I was n't really afraid before. I
could have borne up very well; but now— it 's like
knowing that one is to have tea with a seraph. ' '

Jack, Imogen, and Mary were not yet arrived
when they reached the house; but by the time the
tea was on the table and Valerie in her place behind
the urn, they heard the cab drive up and the feet of
the young people on the stairs.

Jack entered alone, saying that Mary and Imogen
were gone to take off their wraps. Yes, he assured
Valerie, they had promised to keep on their Grecian
robes for tea.

Valerie introduced him to the Pakenhams and led
the congratulations on his triumph. "For it really

206 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

is yours, Jack, as much as if you had painted the
whole series of pictures."

Jack, looking shy, turned from one to the other
as they seconded her enthusiasm,— Mrs. Pakenham,
with her elaborately formal head and china-blue
eyes ; her husband, robust and heavy ; Sir Basil, still
with his benignant, unseeing quality. Among them
all, in spite of Mrs. Wake's keen, familiar visage, in
spite of Valerie 's soft glow, he felt himself a stranger.
He even felt, with a little stab of ill-temper, that
there had been truth in Imogen's diagnosis. They
were kindly, but they were tremendously indifferent.
They did n't at all expect you to be interested in
them; but that hardly atoned for the fact that they
were n't interested in you. For Jack, life was made
up of vigilant, unceasing interest, in himself and in
everybody else.

"Ah, were they all taken from your pictures?"
Sir Basil asked him, strolling up to the mantel
piece to examine a photograph of Imogen that stood
there.

Jack explained that he could claim no such gallery
of achievement. He had made a few sketches for
each tableau ; his work had been, in the main, that of
stage-manager.

"Oh, I see," said Sir Basil, not at all abashed by
his blunder. "Nicer than lay figures to work with,
eh ? all those pretty young women. "

"I don't use lay figures, at any time. I 'm a land
scape painter," Jack explained, somewhat stiffly. He
surmised that had he been introduced as Velasquez
Sir Basil would have been quite as unmoved, just as

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 207

he would have been quite as genially inclined had he
been introduced as a scene-painter.

"I used to think I 'd go in for something of that
sort in my young days," said Sir Basil, holding
Imogen 's photograph ; ' ' and I dabbled a bit in water-
color for a time. Do you remember that little sketch
of the Hall, done from the beech avenue, Mrs. Upton ?
Not so bad, was it ? "

"Not at all bad," said Valerie; "but we can't use
such negatives for Jack's work. It 's very seriously
good, you know. It 's anything but dabbling."

"Oh, yes; I know that you are a real artist," Sir
Basil smiled at Jack from the photograph. "This
does n't do her justice, does it?"

' ' Imogen ? No ; it 's a frightful thing, ' ' said Jack
over-emphatically.

Mrs. Pakenham asked to see it and pronounced
that, for her part, she thought it excellent.

"You ought to paint her portrait," Sir Basil con
tinued, looking at Jack, who had, once more, to ex
plain that landscape was his only subject. He
guessed from the something at once benign and
faintly quizzical in Sir Basil's regard, that to all
these people he was significant, in the main, as
Imogen's lover, and the intuition vexed him still
further.

Imogen's entrance, startling in its splendid incon
gruity, put an end to his self-consciousness and ab
sorbed him in contemplation.

Imogen revealed herself newly, even to him, to-day,
It was n 't the old Imogen of stateliness, graciousness,
placidity, nor the later one of gloom and anger. This

208 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Imogen, lovely, with her flushed cheeks and sparkling
eyes, was deeply excited, deeply self -forgetful. She,
too, was absorbed in her intense curiosity, her fever
ish watchfulness.

She said nothing while her mother introduced her
to the new-comers, who all looked a little taken aback,
as though the resuscitated Grecian heroine were in
deed among them, and stood silently alert near the
tea-table, handing the cups of tea, the cakes and
scones, for Jack and Sir Basil to pass round. Her arms
were bare and her slender bare feet, laced with gold-
clasped fastenings, showed on her white sandals.
Jack saw that Sir Basil 's eyes were fixed on her with
an expression of wonder.

He asked her, as he took the last cup from her,
if she were not cold, and, gentle, though unsmiling,
Imogen replied, "Oh, no!" glancing at the roaring
wood fire, that illuminated her whiteness as if with
a sacrificial glow.

"Do sit down and have your tea, Imogen; you
must be very tired," her mother said, with some
thing of the chill that the scene at the lunch-table
had diffused still in her voice.

"Not very, thanks, mama dear," said Imogen;
and, more incongruous in loveliness than before, she
sat down in a high-backed chair at some little dis
tance from the tea-table. Sir Basil, as if with a sort
of helplessness, remained beside her.

"Yes, it was a great success, was n't it?" Jack
heard her replying presently, while she drank the
tea with which Sir Basil had eagerly supplied her.
"I 'm so glad."

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 209

"You liked doing it, did n't you? You could n't
have done it, like that— looked like that, if you
had n't cared a lot about it," Sir Basil pursued.

Imogen smiled a little and said that she did n't
know that she had liked doing her part particularly, —
it was of her crippled children that she was thinking.
"We '11 be able to get the Home now," she said.

' ' It was for cripple children ? ' '

"Did n't you know? I should have thought
mama would have told you. Yes, it all meant that,
only that, to me. We gave the tableaux to get
enough money to buy a country home for them. ' '

' ' You go in a lot for good works, I know, ' ' said Sir
Basil, and Imogen, smiling again, with the lightness
rooted in excitement, answered : ' ' They go in for me,
rather. All the appeals of suffering seem to come to
one and seize one, don't they? One never needs to
seek causes. ' '

Jack watched them talk, Imogen, the daughter of
the dead, rejected husband, and Sir Basil, her
mother 's suitor.

Mary had come in now, late from changing her
dress, which at the last moment she had felt too shy
to appear in. She was talking to Mrs. Wake and the
Pakenhams.

Standing, a somewhat brooding onlooker, becoming
conscious, indeed, of the sense, stronger than ever, of
loneliness and bereavement, he heard Mrs. Upton
near him say, "Sit down here, Jack."

She showed him a chair beside her, in the corner,
between her tea-table, the window, and the fire. She,
too, was for the moment isolated ; she, too, no doubt,

14

210 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

had been watching; and now she talked to him, not
at all as if she had felt that he were lonely and were
making it up to him, but, once more, like the child
happily gathering and holding out nosegays to an
other child.

A controlled excitement was in her, too; and he
felt still that slight strain of the lunch-table, as if
Imogen's catafalque had marred some too-trustful
assurance; but a growing warmth was diffused
through it, and, as her eyes turned once or twice on
Imogen and Sir Basil, he saw the cause.

The possibility that her daughter might make
friends with her suitor, the solvent, soothing possi
bility that, if realized, would so smooth her path,
had come to her. And in their quiet fire-lit corner,
shut the closer into their isolation by the talk that
made only a confused murmur about them, he felt
a new frankness in her, as though the hope of the
hour effaced ominous memories and melted her reserves
and discretions, making it wholly natural to draw
near him in the implied avowal of shared outlooks.

' ' I believe that Imogen and Sir Basil are going to
get on together, ' ' she said ; " I believe that she likes
him already. I so want them to be friends. He is
such a friend of mine."

"They look friendly," said Jack; "I think I can
always tell when Imogen is going to like people."
He did not add that, with his new insight about
Imogen, he had observed that it was people over
whom she had power that Imogen liked. And al
ready he seemed to see that Imogen would have
some sort of power over Sir Basil.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 211

"And I can always tell when he is going to like
people. He thinks her wonderful," said Valerie.
She exchanged her knowledge with him; it was
touching, the way in which, blind to deep change in
him, she took for granted his greater claim to the
interpretation of Imogen. She added : " It is a very
propitious beginning, I think. ' '

"How long is Sir Basil going to stay here?" Jack
asked.

"All summer. He goes to Canada with the Paken-
hams, and out to the West, for a glimpse of the
changes since he was here years and years ago; and
then I want him to come to Vermont, to us. You and
Imogen will both get to know him well there. Of
course you are coming; Imogen told me that she
asked you long ago."

"Yes; I shall enjoy that immensely," the young
man answered, with, for his own consciousness, »
touch of irrepressible gloom. He did n't look for;
ward to the continuation of the drama, to his own
lame and merely negative part in it, at the close
quarters of a house-party among the Vermont hills.

And as if Valerie had felt the inner doubt she
added suddenly, on a different key, "You really will
enjoy it, won't you?"

He looked up at her. Her face, illuminated by the
firelight, though dimmed against the evening blue
outside, was turned on him with its sudden intent-
ness and penetration of gaze.

"Why, of course," he almost stammered, confused
by the unexpected scrutiny.

"I shall love having you, you know," she said.

212 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"I shall love being with you," he answered, now
without a single inner reserve.

Her intentness seemed to soften, there was solici
tude and a sort of persuasiveness in it. "And you
will have a much better chance of really Adjusting
things there— your friendship with Imogen, I mean.
The country smooths things out. Things get sweet
and simple."

He did n't know what to say. Her mistake, if it
were one, was so inevitable.

"Imogen will have taken her bearings by then,"
she went on. "She has had so much to get accus
tomed to, to bear with, poor child ; her great bereave
ment, and— and a mother who, in some ways, must
always be a trial to her. ' '

"Oh, a trial!"— Jack lamely murmured.

"I recognize it, Jack. I think that you do. But
when she makes up her mind to me, and discovers
that, at all events, I don't interfere with anything
that she really cares about, she will be able to take
up all her old threads again. ' '

"I— I suppose so," Jack murmured.

He had dropped his eyes, for he knew that hers
were on him. And now, in a lowered voice, he heard
her say, "Jack, I hope that you will help me with
Imogen."

"Help you? How do you mean?" startled, he
looked up.

"You know. Interpret me to her now and then,
when you can. with kindliness. You understand me
so much more kindly than she does."

His eyes fixed on hers, deeply flushing— "Oh,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 213

but,"— he breathed out with almost a long sigh,—
"that 's what I have done, you see, ever since—"

' ' Ever since what ? ' '

"Since I came to understand you so mueh better
than she does."

There was a long pause now and, the firelight
flickering low, he could hardly see her face. But he
recognized change in her voice as she said: "You
have? I don't mean, you know, taking my side in
disputes. ' '

"I know; I don't mean that, either, though, per
haps, I can't help doing it; for," said Jack, "it 's
on your side that I am, you know. "

The change in her voice, but controlled, kept down,
she answered quickly,

"Ah, but, dear Jack, I don't want to have a side.
It 's that that I want her to realize. I want her to
feel that my side is hers. I want you to help me in
making her feel it. ' '

"But she '11 never feel it!" Jack breathed out
again. Behind the barrier of the tea-table, in the
flickering dimness, they were speaking suddenly with
a murmuring, yet so sharp a confidence ; a confidence
that in broad daylight, or in complete solitude, might
have seemed impossible. All sorts of things must
steal out in that persuasive, that peopled yet solitary,
twilight.

He knew that Valerie's eyes dwelt on him with
anxiety and that it was with a faint, forced smile
that she asked him: "She does n't think that I '11
ever reach her side?"

"7 don't believe you ever will," said Jack. Then,

214 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

for he could n't bear that she should misunderstand
him for another moment, misunderstanding when
they had come so far was too unendurable, he went
on in a hurried undertone : "You are n't on her side,
really. You can never be on her side. You can
never be like her, or see like her. And I don't want
you to. It 's you who see clearly, not she. It 's you
who are all right."

Her long silence, after this, seemed to him like the
hovering of hands upon him ; as though, in darkness,
she sought by touch to recognize some strange object
put before her.

"But then,— ' she, too, only breathed it out at
last,— "but then,— you are not on her side."

"That 's just it," said Jack. He did not look at
her and she was silent once more before his confes
sion.

"But," she again took up the search, "that is ter
rible for her, if she feels it. ' '

"And for me, too, is n't it?" he questioned, as if
he turned the surfaces of the object beneath her
fingers.

The soft, frightened hover seemed to go all over it,
to recognize it finally, and to draw back, terrified,
from recognition.

"Most terrible of all for me, if I have come be
tween you, ' ' she said.

Her pain pierced him so, that he put out his hand
and took hers. Don 't think that ; you must n 't think
that, not for a moment. It 's not that you came be
tween us. It 's only that, because of you, I began to
see things— 'as I had n't seen them. It was just,—

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 215

well, just like seeing one color change when another
is put beside it. Imogen's blue, now that your gold
has come, is turned to green; that 's all that has
happened."

"All that has happened! Do you know what you
are saying, Jack ! If my gold were gone, would the
blue come back again ? ' '

"The blue will never come back," said Jack.

He felt, as her hand tightened on his, that he
would have liked to put his head down on her knees
and sob like a little boy; but when she said, "And
the green you cannot care for ? ' ' his own hand tight
ened as if they clutched some secret together, some
secret that neither must dare look at. "You must n't
think that— you must n't. And I must n't." He
said it with all the revolt and all the strength of his
will and loyalty ; with all his longing, too. ' ' The real
truth is that the green can't care for me unless I will
see it back to blue again — and as I can't do that, and
as it won't accept my present vision, there is a sort
of dead-lock. ' '

For a long moment her hand continued to grasp
his, before, as if taking in the ambiguous comfort of
his final defmiteness, it relaxed and she drew it away.

"Perhaps she will care enough," she said.

"To accept my vision? To forego blue? To con
sent that I shall see her as green ? ' '

"Yes, when she has taken up all the threads."

"Perhaps she will," said Jack.

XVI

|T was a few days after this, just before
Jack's return to Boston— and the part
ing now was to be until they met in
Vermont— that he and Imogen had an
other walk, another talk together.
The mid-May had become seasonably mild and, at
Jack's suggestion, they had taken the elevated cars
up to Central Park for the purpose of there seeing
the wistaria in its full bloom.

They strolled in the sunlight under arbors rippling
all over with the exquisite purple, dark and pale,
the thin fine leaves of a strange olive-green, the deli
cate tendrils ; they passed into open spaces where, on
gray rocks, it streamed like the tresses of a cascade ;
it climbed and heaped itself on wayside trellises and
ran nimbly, in a shower of fragile color, up the
trunks, along the branches, of the trees. Jack al
ways afterward associated the soft, falling purple,
the soft, languorous fragrance, the almost uncanny
beauty of the wistaria, with melancholy and presage.
Imogen, for the first time since her father's death,
showed a concession to the year's revival in a trans
parent band of white at her neck and wrists. Her
little hat, too, was of transparent black, its crape put

216

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 217

aside. But, though she and the day shared in bloom
and youthfulness, Jack had never seen her look more
heavily bodeful ; had never seen her eyes more fixed,
her lips more cold and stern. The excitement that
he had felt in her was gone. Her curiosity, her
watchfulness, had been satisfied, and grimly re
warded. She faced sinister facts. Jack felt himself
ready to face them, too.

They had spoken little in the clattering car, and
for a long time after they reached the park and
walked hither and thither among its paths, following
at random the beckoning purple of the wistaria,
neither spoke of anything but commonplaces; indi
cating points of view, or assenting to appreciations.
But Imogen said at last, and he knew that with the
words she led him up to those facts: "Do you re
member, Jack, the day we met mama, you and I,
on the docks ? ' '

Jack replied that he did.

"What a different day from this," said Imogen,
"with its frosty glory, its challenge, its strength."

"Very different."

' ' And how different our lives are, ' ' said Imogen.

He did not reply for some moments, and it was
then to say gently that he hoped they were not so
different as, perhaps, they seemed.

"It is not I who have changed, Jack, " said Imogen,
looking before her. And going on, as though she
wished to hear no reply to this : ' ' Do you remember
how we felt as the steamer came in ? We determined
that she should change nothing, that we would n't
yield to any menace of the things we were then

218 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

united in holding dear. It 's strange, is n't it, to
see how subtly she has changed everything? It 's
as if our frosty, sparkling landscape, all wind and
vigor and discipline, were suddenly transformed to
this,— " Imogen looked about her at the limpid
day,— "to soft yielding, soft color, soft perfume,—
it 's like mama, that fragrance of the wistaria,— to
something smiling, languid, alluring. This is the
sort of day on which one drifts. Our past day was
a day of steering. ' '

As much as for the meaning of her careful words,
Jack felt rising in him an anger against the sense of
a readiness prepared beforehand. "You describe it
all very prettily, Imogen," he answered, mastering
the anger. ' ' But I don 't agree with you. ' '

"You seldom do now, Jack. Perhaps it 's because
I 've remained in my own climate while you have
been borne by the 'warm, sweet, harmless' current
into this one. ' '

"I am not conscious of any tendency to drift,
Imogen. I still steer. I intend, very firmly, always
to steer. ' '

"To what, may I ask?"

He was silent for a moment ; then said, lifting eyes
in which she read all that new steeliness of opposi
tion, with, yet, in it, through it, the sadness of hope
less appeal: "I believe in all our ideals— just as I
used to. ' '

To this Imogen made no rejoinder.

"Do you like Sir Basil?" she asked presently,
after, for some time, they had turned along the wind
ings of a long path in a heavy silence.

"I 've hardly seen him." Jack's voice had a

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 219

forced lightness, as though for relief at the change
of subject ; but he guessed that the change was only
apparent. "He is very nice; very delightful look
ing."

"Yes; very delightful looking. Do you happen
to remember what I said to you about him, long ago,
in the winter ? About him and mama ? ' '

"Yes"; Jack flushed; "I remember."

"I told you to wait."

"Yes; you told me to wait."

' ' You will own now, I hope, that I was right. ' '

"Right in thinking that he— that they were more
than friends ? ' '

"Right in thinking that he was in love with her;
that she allowed it."

' ' I suppose you were right. ' '

"I was right. And it 's more than that now. I
have every reason to believe that she intends to
marry him. ' '

He ignored her portentous pause and drop of the
voice, walking on with downcast eyes. "You mean,
it 's an accepted thing ? ' '

"Oh, no! not yet accepted. Mama respects the
black edge, you know. But I heard Mrs. Wake and
Mrs. Pakenham talking about it."

"Heard? How could you have heard?" Jack's
eyes, stern with accusation, were now upon her.

It was impossible for Imogen to lie consciously,
and though she had not, in her eagerness that he
should own her right and share her reprobation,
foreseen this confrontation, she held, before it, all
the dignity of full sincerity.

"You are changed, indeed, Jack, when you can

220 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

suspect me of eavesdropping! I was asleep on the
sofa in the library, worn out with work, and I woke
to hear them talking in the next room, with the door
ajar. I did not realize, for some moments, what was
being said. And then they went out. "

' ' Of course I don 't suspect you ; of course I don 't
think that you would eavesdrop ; though I do hate—
hearing, ' ' Jack muttered.

' ' I hope you realize that I share your hatred, ' ' said
Imogen. "But your opinion of me is not, here, to
the point. I only wish to put before you what I
have now to bear. Mrs. Pakenham said that she
wagered that before the year was out Sir Basil
would have married mama." Imogen paused,
breathing deeply.

Jack walked on beside her, not knowing what to
say. "I think so, too, and wish her joy," would
have been the truest rendering of his feeling.

He curbed it to ask cautiously, ' ' And you mind so
much?"

' ' Mind ! ' ' she repeated, a thunderous echo.

"You dislike it so?"

' ' Dislike ? You use strangely inapt words. ' '

He had another parenthetic shoot of impatience
with her dreadful articulateness ; had Imogen always
talked so much like the heroine of a novel with a
purpose ?

"I only meant— can't you put up with it?"

' ' Put up with it ? Can I do anything else ? What
power have I over her? You don't seem to under
stand. I have passed beyond caring that she makes
herself petty, ridiculous; as a woman of her age

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 221

must in marrying again— the clutch of fading life
at the happiness it has forfeited. Let her clutch if
she chooses; let her marry if she chooses, whom she
chooses, yes, when she chooses. But don't you see
how it shatters my every hope of her, — my every
ideal of her? And don't you see how my heart is
pierced by the presence of that man in my father's
house, the house that she abandoned and cast a
shadow upon? How filled with bitter shame and
anguish I am when I see him there, in that house,
sacred to my grief and to my memories — making love
to my mother ? ' '

No, really, never, never had he heard Imogen so
fluent and so dramatically telling ; and never had he
been so unmoved by the feeling under the fluency.
It was as if he could believe in none.

He remained silent and Imogen continued : "When
she came back, I believed that it was with an impulse
of penitence; with the wish, shallow though I knew
that it must be in such a nature, to atone to me for
the ruin that she had made in his life. I was all
tenderness and sympathy for her, all a longing to
help and sustain her— as you must remember. But
now ! It fulfils all that I had feared and suspected
in her— and more than all ! She left England, she
came here, that the conventions might be observed;
and, considering them observed enough for her pur
pose, she receives her suitor, eight months after my
father's lonely death, — in the house where my heart
breaks and bleeds for him, where 7 mourn for him,
where /—alone, it seems— feel him flouted and be
trayed ! And she talks of her love for me ! "

222 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Jack was wondering that her coherent passion did
not beat him into helpless acquiescence ; but, instead,
he found himself at once replying, "You don't see
fairly. You exaggerate it all. She was unhappy
with your father. For years he made her unhappy.
And now, if she can care for a man who can make
her happy, she has a right, a perfect right, to take
her happiness. As for her loving you, I don't be
lieve that any one loves you more truly. It 'a your
chance, now, to show your love for her. ' '

Imogen stood still and looked at him from the
black disk of her parasol.

"I think I 've suspected this of you, too, Jack,"
she said. "Yes, I 've suspected, in dreadful mo
ments of revelation, how far your undermining has
gone. And you say you are not changed ! "

"Would you ask your mother never to marry
again?"

"I would— if she were in any way to redeem her
image in my eyes. But, granting to the full that
one must make concessions to such creatures of the
senses, I would ask her, at the very least, to have
waited."

"Creatures of the senses!" Jack repeated in a
helpless gasp ; such words, in their austere vocabu
lary, were hardly crodible. ' ' Do you know what you
are saying, you arrogant, you heartless girl?"

Her face seemed to flash at him like lightning from
a black cloud, and with the lightning a reality that
had lacked before to leap to her voice :

"Ah! At last— at last you are saying what you
have felt for a long time ! At last I know what you

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 223

think of me! So be it! I don't retract one jot or
tittle of what I say. Mama is a perfectly moral
woman, if you actually imagine some base imputa
tion; but she lives for the pleasant, the pretty, the
easy. She does n't love this man's soul— nor care if
he has one. Her love for him is a parody of the love
that my father taught me to understand and to hold
sacred. She loves his love for her; his 'delightful'
appearance. She loves his place and name and all
the power and leisure of the life he can give her.
She loves the world— in him ; and in that I mean and
repeat that she is a creature of the senses. And if,
for this, you think me arrogant and heartless, you do
not trouble in one whit my vision of myself, but you
do, forever, mar my vision of you."

They stood face to face in the soft sweet air under
an arch of wistaria; it seemed a place to plight a
troth, not to break one; but Jack knew that, if he
would, he could not have kept the truth from her.
It held him, looked from him ; he was, at last, inevit
ably, to speak it.

"Imogen," he said, "I don't want to talk to you
about your mother; I don't want to defend her to
you ; I 'm past that. I '11 say nothing of your sum
ming up of her character,— it 's grotesque, it 's
piteous, such assurance ! But I do tell you straight
what I 've come to feel of you— that you are a cold
blooded, self-righteous, self -centered girl. And I 11
say more: I think that your bringing-up, the arti
ficiality, the complacent theory of it, is your best
excuse ; and I think that you '11 never find any one
BO generous and so understanding of you as your

224 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

mother. If this mars me in your eyes, I can't help
it."

For a moment, in her deep anger,— horror running
through it, too, as though the very bottom had
dropped out of things and she saw emptiness beneath
her,— she thought that she would tell him to leave
her there, forever. But Imogen 's intelligence was at
times a fairly efficacious substitute for deeper prompt
ings; and humiliation, instead of enwrapping her
mind in a flare of passionate vanity, seemed, when
such intellectual apprehension accompanied it, to
clarify, to steady her thoughts. She saw, now, in
the sudden uncanny illumination, that in all her
vehemence of this afternoon there had been some
thing fictitious. The sorrow, the resentment on her
father 's account, she had, indeed, long felt ; too long
to feel keenly. Her disapproval of the second mar
riage was already tinctured by a certain satisfaction ;
it would free her of a thorn in the flesh, for such her
mother's presence in her life had become, and it
would justify forever her sense of superiority. It
was all the clearest cause for indignation that her
mother had given her, and, seeing it as such, she had
longed to make Jack share her secure reprobation ;
but she had n 't, really, been able to feel it as she saw
it. It solved too many problems and salved too
many hurts. So now, standing there under the arch
of wistaria, she saw through herself; saw, at the
very basis of her impulse, the dislocation that had
made its demonstration dramatic and unconvincing.
Dreadful as the humiliation was, her lips growing
parched, her throat hot and dry with it, her intelli-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 225

gence saw its cause too clearly for her to resent it
as she would have resented one less justified. There
was, perhaps, something to be said for Jack, disas
trously wrong though he was; and, with all her es
sential Tightness, there was, perhaps, something to
be said against her. She could not break, without
further reflection, the threads that still held them
together.

So, at the moment of their deepest hostility, Jack
was to have his sweetest impression of her. She
did n 't order him away in tragic tones, as he almost
expected; she did n't overwhelm him with an icy
torrent of reproach and argument. Instead, as she
stood there against her halo of black, the long regard
of her white face fixed on him, her eyes suddenly
filled with tears. She did n't acquiesce for a mo
ment, or, for a moment, imply him anything but
miserably, pitiably wrong ; but in a voice from which
every trace of anger had faded she said : ' ' Oh Jack,
how you hurt me ! "

The shock of his surprise was so great that hi
cheeks flamed as though she had struck him. An
swering tears sprang to his eyes. He stammered,
could not speak at first, then got out: "Forgive me.
I 'd no business to say it. It 's lovely of you, Imogen
not just to send me off. ' '

She felt her triumph, her half-triumph, at once
"Why, Jack, if you think it, why should I forgive
you for saying what, to you, seems the truth ? You
have forgotten me, Jack, almost altogether ; but don't
forget that truth is the thing that I care most for.
If you must think these things of me— and not only

15

226 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

of me, of a dearer self, for I understand all that you
meant— I must accept the sorrow and pain of it.
When we care for people we must accept suffering
because of them. Perhaps, in time, you may come to
see differently. ' '

He knew, though she made him feel so abashed,
that he could take back none of the "things" he
thought; but as she had smiled faintly at him he
answered with a wavering smile, putting out his
hand to hers and holding it while he said : ' ' Shall we
agree, then, to say nothing more about it ? To be as
good friends— as the truth will let us?"

He had never hurt her as at that moment of gentle
ness, compunction, and inflexibility, and thought,
for a moment, was obscured by a rush of bitter pain
that could almost have cast her upon his breast,
weeping and suppliant for all that his words shut
the door on— perhaps forever.

But such impulses were swiftly mastered in poor
Imogen. Gravely pressing his hand, she accepted
the cutting compact, and, over her breathless sense
of loss, held firm to the spiritual advantage of mag
nanimity and courage. He judged himself, not her,
in letting her go, if he was really letting her go ; and
she must see him wander away into the darkness,
alone, leaving her alone. It was tragic ; it was nearly
unendurable ; but this was one of life's hard lessons ;
her father had so often told her that they must be
unflinchingly faced, unflinchingly conquered. So
she triumphed over the weak crying out of human
need.

They walked on slowly again, both feeling a little

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 227

' ' done. ' ' Neither spoke until, at the entrance of the
park, and just before leaving its poetry for the
screaming prose of the great city, Imogen said : "One
thing I want to tell you, Jack, and that is that you
may trust mama to me. Whatever I may think of
this happiness that she is reaching out for, I shall
not make it difficult or painful for her to take it.
My pain shall cast no shadow on her gladness. ' '

Jack's face still showed its flush and his voice had
all the steadiness of his own interpretation, the steadi^
ness of his refusal to accept hers, as he answered,
' ' Thanks, Imogen ; that 's very right of you. ' '

XVII

^MOGEN and Sir Basil were walking
down a woodland path under the sky
of American summer, a vast, high,
cloudless dome of blue. Trees, tall and
delicate, in early June foliage, grew
closely on the hillside ; the grass of the open glades
was thick with wild Solomon 's-seal, and fragile clus
ters of wild columbine grew in the niches and cran
nies of the rocks, their pale-red chalices filled with
fantastically fretted gold.

Imogen, dressed in thin black lawn, fine plaitings
of white at throat and wrists, her golden head un
covered, walked a little before Sir Basil with her
long, light, deliberate step. She had an errand in
the village two miles away, and her mother had sug
gested that Sir Basil should go with her and have
some first impressions of rural New England. He
had only arrived the night before. Miss Bocock and
the Pottses were expected this afternoon, and Mrs.
Wake had been for a fortnight established in her
tiny cottage on the opposite hillside.

"Tell me about your village here," Sir Basil had
said, and Imogen, with punctual courtesy and kind-

228

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 229

ness, the carrying out of her promise to Jack, had
rejoined: "It would be rather uneventful annals
that I should have to tell you. The people are palely
prosperous. They lead monotonous lives. They
look forward for variety and interest, I think, to the
summer, when all of us are here. One does all one
can, then, to make some color for them. I have or
ganized a kindergarten for the tiny children, and a
girls' club for debates and reading; it will help to
an awakening I believe. I 'm going to the club this
afternoon. I 'm very grateful to my girls for help
ing me as they do to be of use to them. It 's quite
wonderful what they have done already. Our vil
lage life is in no sense like yours in England, you
know ; these people are all very proud and indepen
dent. It 's as a friend, not as a Lady Bountiful, that
I go among them."

"I see," said Sir Basil, with interest, "that 's
awfully nice all round. I wish we could get rid of a
lot of stupid ways of thought at home. I '11 see
something of these friends of yours at the house,
then. I 'm immensely interested in all these differ
ences, you know."

"You won't see them at the house. Our relation
is friendly, not social. That is a froth that does n't
count. ' '

"Oh! and they don't mind that— not having the
social relation, I mean— if they are friends?"

"Why should they? I am not hurt because they
do not ask me to their picnics and parties, nor are
they because I don't ask them to my dinners and
teas. We both understand that all that is a matter

230 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

of manner and accident; that in essentials we are
equal. ' '

"I see; but," Sir Basil still queried, "you
would n't care about their parties, I suppose, and
don't you think they might like your dinners? At
least that 's the way it would work out, I 'm afraid,
at home."

"Ah, it does n't here. They are too civilized for
that. Neither of us would feel fitted to the super
ficial aspects of the others' lives."

"We have that sort of thing in England, too, you
know; only perhaps we look at it more from the
other side, and recognize difference rather than same
ness."

"Very much more, I think," said Imogen with a
slight smile. "I should think that there was very
little resemblance. Your social structure is a whole
some, natural growth, embodying ideals that, in the
main, are unconscious. We started from that and
have been building ever since toward conscious
ideals."

"Well," — Sir Basil passed over this simile, a lit
tle perplexed,— "it 's very wonderful that they
should n't feel— inferior, you know, in our ugly
sense of the word, if they only get one side of friend
ship and not the other. Now that 's how we manage
in England, you see; but then I 'm afraid it does n't
work out as you say it does here ; I 'm afraid they do
feel inferior, after a fashion."

"Only the truly inferior could feel inferiority,
since they get the real side of friendship," said Imo
gen, with gentle authority. "And I can't think

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 231

that, in our sense of the word, the real side is given
with you. There is conscious condescension, con
scious adaptation to a standard supposed lower."

"I see; I see"; Sir Basil murmured, looking,
while still perplexed, rather conscience-stricken;
"yes, I suppose you 're right."

Imogen looked as though she more than supposed
it, and, feeling himself quite worsted, Sir Basil went
on to ask her further questions about the club and
kindergarten.

"What a lot of work it must all mean for you," he
said.

"That, I think, is one's only right to the advan
tages one has— education, taste, inherited traditions,"
said Imogen, willing to enlighten this charmingly
civilized, yet spiritually barbarous, interlocutor who
followed her, tall, in his delightfully outdoor-looking
garments, his tie and the tilt of his Panama hat an
swering her nicest sense of fitness, and his handsome
brown face, quizzical, yet very attentive, meeting
her eyes on its leafy background whenever she
turned her head. "If they are not made in
struments to use for others they rust in our
hands and poison us," she said. "That 's the
only real significance of an aristocracy, a class
fitted to serve, with the highest service, the needs
of all. Of course, much of our best and deep
est thought about these things is English; don't im
agine me ungrateful to the noble thinkers of your—
of my— race, — they have moulded and inspired us;
but, there is the strange paradox of your civiliza
tion, your thought reacts so little on your life. Your

232 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

idealists and seers count only for your culture, and
even in your culture affect so little the automatic
existence of your people. They form a little isolated
class, a leaven that lies outside the lump. Now, with
us, thought rises, works, ferments through every
section of our common life. ' '

Quite without fire, almost indolently, she spoke;
very simply, too, glancing round at him, as though
she could not expect much understanding from such
an alien listener.

"I 'm awfully glad, you know, to get you to talk
to me like this," said Sir Basil, after a meditative
pause ; " I saw a good bit of you in New York, but
you never talked much with me."

"You had mama to talk to."

"But I want to talk to you, too. You do a lot of
thinking, I can see that."

"I try to"; she smiled a little at his naivete.

"Your mother told me so much about you that
I 'm tremendously eager to know you for myself. ' '

"Well, I hope that you may come to, for mama's
pictures of me are not likely to be accurate," said
Imogen mildly. "We don't think in the same way
or see things in the same way and, though we are so
fond of each other, we are not interested in the same
things. Perhaps that is why I don't Interest her
particular friends. They would not find much in
common between mama and me"; but her smile
was now a little humorous and she was quite pre
pared for his ' ' Oh, but, I assure you, I am interested
in you."

Already, with her unerring instinct for power,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 233

Imogen knew that Sir Basil was interested in her.
There was only, to be sure, a languid pleasure in the
sense of power over a person already, as it were, so
bespoken, so in bondage to other altars ; but, though
without a trace of coquetry, the smile quietly
claimed him as a partial, a damaged convert. Imo
gen always knew when people were capable of being,
as she expressed it to herself, "Hers." She made
small effort for those who were without the capacity.
She never misdirected such smiles upon Rose, or Miss
Bocock, or Mrs. Wake. And now, as Sir Basil went
on to asseverate, just behind her shoulder, his pleas
ant tones quite touched with eagerness, that the more
he saw of her the more interested he became, she
allowed him to draw her into a playful argument on
the subject.

"Yes, I quite believe that you would like me— if
you came to know me" — she was willing to concede
at last; "but, no, indeed no, I don't think that you
would ever feel much interest in me."

"You mean because I 'm not sufficiently interest
ing myself? Is that it, eh?" Sir Basil. acutely asked,
reflecting that he had never seen a girl walk so beau
tifully or dress so exquisitely. The sunlight glit
tered in her hair.

"I don't mean that at all," said Imogen; "al
though I don't fancy that you are interested so
deeply, and in so many things, as I am. ' '

' ' Now, really ! Why not ? You have n 't given
me a chance to show you. Of course I 'm not
clever. ' '

"I meant nothing petty, like cleverness."

234 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

' ' You mean that I don 't take life seriously enough
to please you ? ' '

"Not that, exactly. It 's that we face in opposite
directions, as it were. Life is n't to you what it is
to me, it is n't to you such a big, beautiful thing,
with so many wonderful vistas in it— such far, high
peaks. ' '

She was very grave now, and the gravity, the as
surance, and, with them, the sweetness, of this young
girl were charming and perplexing to Sir Basil.
Girls so assured he had found harsh, disagreeable
and, almost always, ugly; they had been the sort of
girl one avoided. And girls so lovely had usually
been coy and foolish. This girl walked like a queen,
looked at one like a philosopher, smiled at one like
an angel. He fixed his mind on her last words, ral
lying his sense of quizzical paternity to meet such-
disconcerting statements.

"Well, but you are very young; life looks like
that — peaks, you know, and vistas, and all the rest
—when one is young. You Ve not had time to find
it out, to be disappointed, ' ' said Sir Basil.

Imogen's calm eye rested upon him, and even be~
fore she spoke he knew that he had made a very
false step. It was as if, sunken to the knees in his
foolish bog, he stood before her while she replied:

"Ah, it 's that that is shallow in you, or, let us
say, undeveloped, still to be able to think of life in
those terms. They are the thoughts of an unawak-
ened person, and some people, I know, go all through
life without awaking. You imagine, I suppose, that
I think of life as something that is going to give me

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 235

happiness, to fulfil sentimental', girlish dreams. You
are mistaken. I have known bitter disappointments,
bitter losses, bitter shatterings of hope. But life is
wonderful and beautiful to me because we can be our
best and do our best in it, and for it, if we try. It 's an
immense adventure of the soul, an adventure that
can disappoint only in the frivolous sense you were
thinking of. Such joys are not the objects of our
quest. One is disappointed with oneself, often, for
falling so short of one's vision, and people whom we
love and trust may fail us and give us piercing pain ;
but life, in all its oneness, is good and beautiful if we
wake to its deepest reality and give our hearts to the
highest that we know."

She spoke sadly, softly, surely, thinking of her own
deep wounds, and to speak such words was almost
like repeating a familiar lesson, — how often she had
heard them on her father's lips,— and Sir Basil lis
tened, while he looked at the golden head, at the
white hand stretched out now and then to put aside
a branch or sapling — listened with an amazement
half baffled and wholly admiring. He had never
heard a girl talk like that. He had heard such
words before, often, of course, but they had never
sounded like this; they seemed fresh, and sparkling
with a heavenly dew, spoken so quietly, with such
indifference to their effect, such calmness of convic
tion. The first impression of her, that always hov
ered near, grew more strongly upon him. There was
something heavenly about this girl. It was as though
he had heard an angel singing in the woods, and a
feeling of humility stole over him. It was usual for

236 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Sir Basil, who rarely thought about himself, to feel
modest, but very unusual for him to feel humble.

"You make me believe it, when you say it," he
murmured. " I 'm afraid you think me a dreadfully
earthy, commonplace person."

Imogen, at the change of note in his voice, looked
round at him, more really aware of him than she had
been at all, and when she met his glance the proph
et's calm fervor rose in her to answer the faith that
she felt in him. She paused, letting him come
abreast of her in the narrow path, and they both
stood still, looking at each other.

' ' You are not earthy ; you are not commonplace, ' '
said Imogen, then, as a result of her contemplation.
"I believe that you are a very big person, Sir Basil."

"A big person? How do you mean?" He abso
lutely flushed, half abashed, half delighted.

Imogen continued to gaze, clearly and deeply.
"There are all sorts of possibilities in you."

"Oh, come now! At my age! Why, any possi
bilities are over, except for a cheerful kind of veg
etating. ' '

"You have vegetated all your life, I can see that.
No one has ever waked you. You have hardly used
your soul at all. It 's with you as it is with your
country, whose life is built strongly and sanely with
body and brain but who has not felt nationally, as a
whole, its spirit. Like it, you have a spirit ; like it,
you are full of possibilities."

"Miss Upton, you are n't like anybody I 've ever
known. What sort of possibilities?"

She walked on now, feeling his thrill echo in her-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 237

self, symptomatic of the passing forth of power and
its return as enrichment of life and inspiration to
helpfulness. "Of service," she said. "Of devotion
to great needs; courage in great causes. I don't
think that you have ever had a chance."

Sir Basil, keeping his eyes on her straight, pale
profile, groping and confused in this new flood of
light, wondered if he had.

"You are an extraordinary young woman," he
said at last. "You make me believe in everything
you say, though it 's so awfully queer, you know, to
think in that way about myself. If you talk to me
often like this, about needs and causes, will it give
me more of a chance, do you think ? ' '

' ' We must all win to the light for ourselves, ' ' said
Imogen very gently, ' ' but we can help one another. ' '

They had come now to the edge of the wood and
out upon the white road that curved from the village
up to the blue of the hills they had descended. A
tiny brook ran with a sharp, silvery tinkle on its
farther edge and it was bordered by a light barrier
of white railing. Beyond were spacious, half-culti
vated meadows, stretched out for miles in the lap of
low-lying hills.

Serene yet inhuman the landscape looked, a back
ground to the thinnest of histories, significant only
of its own dreaming solitude ; and the village, among
its elms, a little farther on, suggested the barest past,
the most barren future. The road led on into its
main street, where the elms made a stately avenue,
arching over scattered frame houses of buff and gray
and white. Imogen told Sir Basil that some of these

238 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

houses were old, and pointed out an austere classic
facade with pediment and pillars ; explained to him,
too, the pathetic condition of so much of abandoned
New England. Sir Basil was thinking more of her
last words in the woods than of local color, but he
had, while he listened, a fairly definite impression
of pinchbeck shops; of shabby awnings slanting in
the sunlight over heaps of tumbled fruit and vege
tables; of "buggies," slip-shod, with dust- whitened
wheels, the long-tailed, long-maned, slightly har
nessed horses hitched to posts along the pavements.
The faces that passed were indolent yet eager. The
jaws of many worked mechanically at some unap-
peasing task of mastication.

Sir Basil had traveled since his arrival in
America, had seen the luxuries of the Atlantic sea-
coast, the purposeful energy of Chicago, California's
Eden-like abundance, and had seen other New Eng
land villages where beauty was cherished and made
permanent. He hardly needed Imogen's further
comments to establish his sense of contrast.

' ' This was always a poor enough little place. Any
people who made it count left it long ago. But even
here," she went on, "even in its stagnation, one can
find some of the things we care for in our country,
some of the things we live for. ' '

Some of these things seemed personified in the
figure of the young woman who met them in the
girls' club, among the shelves of books and the
numerous framed photographs from the old masters.
Imogen introduced Sir Basil to her and he watched
her with interest while she and Imogen discussed

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 239

some business matters. She was slender and up
right, perhaps too upright; she was, in manner, un
affected and assured, perhaps too assured, but that
Sir Basil did not observe. He found her voice un
pleasant and her pronunciation faulty, but thought
that she expressed herself with great force and
fluency. Her eyes were bright, her skin sallow, she
smiled gravely, and her calmness and her smile
reminded Sir Basil a little of Imogen ; perhaps they
were racial. She was dressed in a simple gray cotton
frock with neat lawn collar and cuffs, and her hair
was raised in a lustrous "pompadour," a wide comb
traversing it behind and combs at the sides of her
head upholding it in front. Toward Sir Basil she
behaved with gracious stateliness of demeanor, so
that he wondered anew at the anomalies of a country
of ideals where a young person so well-appearing
should not be asked to dinner.

Several other girls came in while they were there,
and they all surrounded Imogen with eager famil
iarity of manner; all displayed toward himself, as
he was introduced, variations of Miss Hickson's
stateliness. He thought it most delightful and inter
esting and the young women very remarkable per
sons. One discordant note, only, was struck in the
harmony, and that discord was barely discerned by
his untrained, ear. While Imogen was talking, a girl
appeared in the doorway, hesitated, then, with an
indifferent and forbidding manner, strolled across
the room to the book-shelves, where she selected a
book, strolling out again with the barest nod of sullen
recognition. She was a swarthy girl, robust and

240 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

ample of form, with 'black eyes and dusky cheeks.
Her torn red blouse and untidy hair marked her
out from the sleek and social group. Sir Basil
thought her very interesting looking. He asked
Imogen, as they walked away under the elms, who
she was. ' ' That artistic young person, with the dark
hair."

"Artistic? Do you mean Mattie Smith?— the
girl with the bad manners 1 ' ' asked Imogen, smiling
tolerantly.

"Yes, she looked like a clever young person. She
belongs to the club 1 ' '

"She hardly counts as one of its members, though
we welcome everyone, and, like all the girls of the
village, she enjoys the use of our library. She is not
clever, however. She is an envious and a rather ill-
tempered girl, with very little of the spirit of sister
hood in her. And she nurses her defect of isolation
and self-sufficiency. I hope that we may win her
over to wider, sweeter outlooks some day. ' '

Mattie Smith, however, was one of the people upon
whom Imogen wasted no smiles. On the Uptons first
coming to spend their summers near Hamborough,
Imogen had found this indolent yet forcible person
ality barring her path of benignant activity. Mattie
Smith, unaided, undirected, ignorant of the Time
Spirit's high demands upon the» individual,
had already formed a club of sorts, a tawdry little
room hung with bright bunting and adorned with
colored pictures from the cheaper magazines, pic
tures of over-elegant, amorously inclined young
couples in ball-rooms or on yachts and beaches.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 241

Here the girls read poor literature, played games,
made candy over the stove and gossiped about their
young men. Imogen deeply disapproved of the
place ; its ventilation was atrocious and its moral in
fluence harmful ; it relaxed and did not discipline, —
so she had expressed it to her father. It soon with
ered under her rival beams. Mattie Smith's members
drifted by degrees into the more advantageous alli
ance. Mattie Smith had resented this triumphant
placing of the higher standard and took pains, as
Imogen, with the calm displeasure of the successful,
observed, to make difficulties for her and to treat
her with ostentatious disregard. Imogen guessed
very accurately at the seething of anger and jealousy
that bubbled in Mattie Smith 's breast ; it was typical
of so much of the lamentable spirit displayed by rudi
mentary natures when feeling the pressure of an
ideal they did not share or when brought into con
tact with a more finished manner of life from which
they were excluded. Imogen, too, could not have
borne a rival ascendancy; but she was ascendant
through right divine, and, while so acutely under
standing Mattie Smith's state of mind, she could not
recognize a certain sameness of nature. She hoped
that Mattie Smith would "grow," but she felt that,
essentially, she was not of the sort from which
' ' hers ' ' were made.

XVIII

was almost four o'clock by the time
that Imogen and Sir Basil reached the
summit of one of the lower hills, and,
among the trees, came upon the white
glimmer of the Upton's summer home.
It stood in a wide clearing surrounded on three sides
by the woods, the higher ranges rising about it, its
lawn running down to slopes of long grass, thick
with tall daisies and buttercups. Farther on was
an orchard, and then, beyond the dip of a valley,
the blue, undulating distance, bathed in a crystalline
quivering. The house, of rough white stucco, had
lintels and window-frames of dark wood, a roof of
gray shingles, and bright green shutters. A wide
veranda ran around it, wreathed in vines and creep
ers, and borders of flowers grew to the edges of the
woods. Sir Basil thought that he had never seen
anything prettier. Valerie, dressed in thin black,
was sitting on the veranda, and beside her Miss
Bocock, still in traveling dress, looked incongruously
ungraceful. She had arrived an hour before with the
Pottses, who had gone to their rooms, and said, in
answer to Imogen's kindly queries, that the journey
had n't been bad, though the train was very stuffy.

242

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 243

Then it appeared that Miss Bocock and Sir Basil
were acquainted; they recollected each other, shook
hands heartily, and asked and answered local ques
tions. Miss Bocock 's people lived not so many miles
from Thremdon Hall, and, though she had been
little at home of late years, she and Sir Basil had
country memories in common. She said presently
that she, too, would like to tidy for the tea, and
Imogen, taking her to her room, sat with her while
she smoothed out one section of her hair and
tonged the other, and while she put on a
very stiff holland skirt and a blouse distress
ing to Imogen's sensitive taste, a crude pink
blouse, irrelevantly adorned about the shoulders
with a deep frill of imitation lace. While she
dressed she talked, in her higtt-p itched, cheerful
voice, of the recent very successful lectures she had
given in Boston and the acquaintances she had made
there.

"I hope that my letters of introduction proved
useful," said Imogen. She considered Miss Bocock
her protegee, but Miss Bocock, very vexatiously,
seemed always oblivious of that fact ; so that Imogen,
though feeling that she had secured a guest who
conferred luster, could n't resist, now and then, try
ing to bring her to a slightly clearer sense of obliga
tion.

Miss Bocock said that, yes, they had been very
useful, and Imogen watched her select from the
graceful nosegay on her dressing-table two red roses
which she pinned to her pink blouse with a heavy
silver brooch representing, in an encircling bough,

£44 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

a mother bird hovering with outstretched wings over
a precariously placed nest.

' ' Let me get you a white rose, ' ' Imogen suggested ;
but Miss Bocock said, no, thanks, she was very fond
of that shade of red.

' ' So you know Sir Basil, ' ' said Imogen, repressing
her sense of irritation.

"Know him? Yes, of course. Everybody in
the county knows him. He is the big man there
abouts, you see. The old squire, his father, was very
fond of my father, and we go to a garden-party at
the hall once a year or so. It 's a nice old place."

Imogen felt some perplexity. "But if your father
and his were such friends why don't you see more of
each other?"

Miss Bocock looked cheerfully at her. "Why, be
cause he is big and we are n't. We are middle-class
and he very much upper ; it 's a very old family, the
Thremdons,— I forget for how many generations
they have been in Surrey. Now my dear old dad
was only a country doctor," Miss Bocock went on,
seated in a rocking-chair — she liked rocking-chairs —
with her knees crossed, her horribly shaped patent-
leather shoes displayed and her clear eyes, through
their glasses, fixed on Imogen while she made these
unshrinking statements; "and a country doctor's
family has n't much to do with county people."

"What an ugly thing," said Imogen, while,
swiftly, her mind adjusted itself to this new seeing
of Miss Bocock. By its illumination Miss Bocock 's
assurance toward herself grew more irritating than
before, and the fact that Miss Bocock 's flavor was
very different from Sir Basil's became apparent.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 245

"Not at all," said Miss Bocock. "It 's a natural
crystallization. You are working toward the same
sort of thing over here — only not in such a whole
some way, I think."

Imogen flushed a little. "Our crystallizations,
when they are n't artificially brought about "by
apings of your civilization, take place through real
superiority and fitness. A woman of your intel
lectual ability is anybody's equal in America."

"Oh, as far as that goes, in that sense, I 'm any
body's equal in England, too," said Miss Bocock,
unperturbed and unimpressed.

Imogen rather wished she could make her feel
that, since crystallizations were a fact, the Uptons,
in that sense, were as much above her as the Threm-
dons. Idealist democrat as she counted herself, she
had these quick glances at a standard kept, as it
were, for private use ; as if, from under an altar in
the temple of humanity, its priest were to draw out
for some personal reassurance a hidden yard-
measure.

Tea, when they went down again, was served
on the veranda and Imogen could observe, during
its progress, that Miss Bocock showed none of the
disposition to fawn on Sir Basil that one might have
expected from a person of the middle-class. She
contradicted him as cheerfully as she did Imogen
herself.

Mr. and Mrs. Potts had gone for a little ramble
in the lower woods, but they soon appeared, Mr.
Potts seating himself limply on the steps and fan
ning himself with his broad straw hat— a hat that
in its very largeness and looseness seemed to express

246 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

the inflexible ideals of non-conformity—while Mrs.
Potts, very firmly busked and bridled, her head very
sleek, her smile very tight, took a chair between
Mrs. Upton and Sir Basil, and soon showed, in her
whole demeanor, a consciousness of the latter 's small
titular decoration that placed her more definitely
for Imogen's eye than she had ever been placed be
fore. The Pottses were middle-class with a ven
geance. Imogen's irritation grew as she watched
these limpet-like friends, one sprawling and ill-at-
ease for all his careful languor, the other quite
dreadfully well-mannered, sipping her tea, arching
her brows and assuming all sorts of perilous ele
gancies of pronunciation that Imogen had never
before heard her attempt. It was an additional
vexation to have them display toward herself, with
even more exaggeration than usual, their tenacious
tenderness; listening, with a grave turning of head
and eye when she spoke, and receiving each remark
with an over-emphasis of feeling on their over-
mobile features.

There was, indeed, an odd irony in the Pottses
being there at all. They had, in her father's life
time, only been asked with a horde of their kind,
the whole uplifted batch thus worked off together,
and Imogen had really not expected her mother to
agree to her suggestion that they should be invited
to pay the annual visit during Sir Basil's stay. She
would not own to herself that her suggestion had
been made from a vague wish to put her mother to
a test, to force her into a definite declaration against
the incongruous guests; she had thought of the

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 247

suggestion, rather, as an upholding of her father's
banner before the oncoming betrayal ; but, instead of
refusal, she had met with an instant, happy acqui
escence, and it was now surely the climax of irony
to see how her mother, for her sake, bore with them.
More than for her sake, perhaps. Imogen detected
in those seemingly indolent, yet so observant, eyes a
keen reading of the Pottses ' perturbed condition, and
in her manner, so easy and so apt, the sweetest,
lightest kindness. She turned corners and drew veils
for them, spread a warm haze of interest and serenity
about their clumsy and obtruding personalities.
Imogen could even see that the Pottses were recon
sidering, with some confusion of mind, their old
verdict on her mother.

This realization brought to her brooding thoughts
a sudden pang of self-reproach. It would n 't do for
the Pottses to find in her mother the cordiality they
might miss in herself. She confessed that, for a
moment, she had allowed the banner to trail in the
dust of worldly thoughts, the banner to which the
Pottses, poor dears, had rallied for so many loyal
years. She summoned once more all her funds of
spiritual appreciation and patience. As for Miss
Bocock, she made not the slightest attempt to talk
to the Pottses. She had come up with them from
the station, — they had not found each other on the
train,— and she had probably had her fill of them
in that time. Once or twice, in the act of helping
herself plentifully to cake, she paused to listen to
them, and after that looked away, over their heads
or through them, as if she finally dismissed them

248 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

from, the field of her attention. Mrs. Potts was ques
tioning Sir Basil about his possible knowledge of her
own English ancestry. "We came over in the May
flower, you know, ' ' she said.

"Really," said Sir Basil, all courteous interest.

"The Claremonts, you know," said Mrs. Potts,
modestly, yet firmly, too. "My father was in direct
descent; we have it all worked out in our family
tree."

"Oh, really," said Sir Basil again.

"I Ve no doubt," said Mrs. Potts, "that your
forebears and mine, Sir Basil, were friends and com
rades in the spacious times of good Queen Bess."

Imogen, at this, glanced swiftly at her mother;
but she caught no trace of wavering on that mild
countenance.

"Oh, well, no," Sir Basil answered. "My people
were very little country squires in those days; we
did n't have much to do with the Dukes of Clare-
mont. We only began to go up, you see, a good
bit after you were on the top."

Imogen fixed a calm but a very cold eye upon Mrs.
Potts. She had heard of the Dukes of Claremont for
many years ; so had everybody who knew Mrs. Potts ;
they were an innocent, an ingrained illusion of the
good lady's, but to-day they seemed less innocent and
more irritating than usual. Imogen felt that she
could have boxed Mrs. Potts 's silly ears. In Sir
Basil's pleasant disclaimers, too, there was an echo
of Miss Bocock's matter-of-fact acknowledgments
that seemed to set them both leagues away from the
Pottses and to make their likeness greater than their
difference.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 249

"Well, of course," Mrs. Potts was going on, her
pince-nez and all her small features mingled, as it
were, in the vividest glitter, "for me, I confess, it 's
blood, above all and beyond all, that counts ; and you
and I, Sir Basil, know that it is in the squirearchy
that some of the best blood in England is found.
We don't recognize an aristocracy in our country,
Sir Basil, but, though not recognized, it rules,— blood
must rule; one often, in a democracy, feels that as
one's problem."

"It 's only through service that it rules," Mr.
Potts suddenly ejaculated from where he sat doubled
on the steps looking with a gloomy gaze into the
distance. "Service; service— that 's our watchword.
Lend a hand."

Imogen saw a latent boredom piercing Sir Basil's
affability. Great truths uttered by some lips might
be made to seem very unefficacious. She proposed
to him that she should show him the wonderful dis
play of mountain-laurel that grew higher up among
the pine-woods. He rose with alacrity, but Mrs.
Potts rose too. Imogen could hardly control her
vexation when, flipping the crumbs from her lap
and smoothing the folds at her waist, she declared
that she was just in the humor for a walk and
must see the laurel with them.

"You must n't tire yourself. Would n't you
rather stay and have another cup of tea and talk to
me?" Mrs. Upton interposed, so that Imogen felt
a dart of keen gratitude for such comprehension;
but Mrs. Potts was not to be turned aside from her
purpose. "Thank you so much, dear Mrs. Upton,"
she answered; "we must have many, many talks

250 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

indeed; but I do want to see my precious Imogen,
and to see the laurel with her. You are one of those
rare beings, darling Imogen, with whom one can
share nature. Will you come, too, Delancy, dear?"
she asked her husband, "or will you stay and talk
to Mrs. Upton and Miss Bocock ? I 'm sure that they
will be eager to hear of this new peace committee of
ours and zestful to help on the cause. ' '

Mr. Potts rather sulkily said that he would stay
and talk to Mrs. Upton and Miss Bocock about the
committee, and Imogen felt that it was in a manner
of atonement to him for her monopolization of a
lustrous past that Mrs. Potts presently, as they be
gan the steep ascent along a winding, mossy path,
told Sir Basil that her husband, too, knew the re
sponsibility and burden of "blood." And as, for a
moment, they went before her, Imogen fancied that
she heard the murmur of quite a new great name
casting its aegis about Mr. Potts. Very spiritual
people could, she reflected, become strangely men
dacious when borne along on the wings of ardor and
exaltation.

Mrs. Potts 's presence was really quite intolerable,
and, as she walked behind her and listened to her
murmur, Imogen bethought her of an amusing,
though rather ruthless, plan of elimination. Imogen
was very capable of ruthlessness when circumstances
demanded it. Turning, therefore, suddenly to the
right, she led them into a steep and rocky path that,
as she well knew, would eventually prove impassable
to Mrs. Potts 's short legs and stiff, fat person. In
deed, Mrs. Potts soon began to pant and sigh. Her

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 251

recital of the family annals became disconnected;
she paused to take off and rub her eyeglasses and
presently asked, in extenuated tones, if this were the
usual path to the laurel.

"It 's the one I always take, dear Mrs. Potts ; it 's
the one I wanted Sir Basil to see, it 's so far the
lovelier. One gets the most wronderful, steep views
down into far depths of blue." Imogen, perched
like a slender Valkyrie on the summit of a crag
above, thus addressed her perturbed friend.

She could n't really but be amused by Mrs. Potts 's
pertinacity, for, not yet relinquishing her purpose,
she continued, in silence now, her lips compressed,
her forehead beaded with moisture, to scale the diffi
cult way, showing a resolute nimbleness amazing in
one so ill-formed for feats of agility. Sir Basil gave
her a succoring hand while Imogen soared ahead,
confident of the moment when Mrs. Potts, perforce,
must fall back.

' ' Tiresome woman ! ' ' she thought, but she could n 't
help smiling while she thought it, and heard Mrs.
Potts 's deep breath laboring up behind her. It was,
perhaps, rather a shame to balk her in this way;
but, after all, she was to have a full fortnight of
Sir Basil and she, Imogen, felt that on this day, the
day of a new friendship, Sir Basil's claim on her
was paramount. She had something for him, a light,
a strengthening, and she must keep the hour sacred
to that stir of awakening. Among the pines and
laurels she would say a few more words of help to
him. So that Mrs. Potts must be made to go.

The moment came. A shoulder of rock overhung

2CK A FOUNTAIN SEALED

the way and the only passage was over its almost
perpendicular surface. Imogen, as if unconscious
of difficulty, with a stride, a leap, a swift clutch of
her firm white hand, was at the top, smiling down
at them and saying : ' ' Now here the view is our very
loveliest. One looks down for miles."

"But— my dear Imogen— is there no other way,
round it, perhaps?" Mrs. Potts looked desperately
into the thick underbrush on either side.

"No other way," said Imogen. "But you can
manage it. This is only the beginning,— there 's
some real climbing farther on. Put your foot where
I did— no, higher— near the little fern— your hand
here, look, do you see? Take a firm hold of that-
then a good spring — and here you are."

Poor Mrs. Potts laid a faltering hand on the high
ledge that was only a first stage in the chamois-like
feat, and Imogen saw unwilling relinquishment in
her eye.

"I don't see as I can do it," she, murmured, re
lapsing, in her distress, into a helpless vernacular.

"Oh, yes, this is nothing. Sir Basil will give you
a push. I '11 pull you and he will push you," Imo
gen, with kindest solicitude, suggested.

"Oh, I don't see as I can," Mrs. Potts repeated,
looking rather wild at the vision of such a push.
She did n't at all lend herself to pushes, and yet,
facing even the indignities of that method, she did,
though faltering, place herself in position; did lay
a desperate hold of the high ledge, place her small,
fat, tightly buttoned foot high beside the fern ; allow
Sir Basil, with a hand under each armpit, to kindly

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 253

count "One-two-three— now for it!"— did even, at
the word of command, make a passionate jump, only
to lose hold, scrape lamentably down the surface of
the rock, and collapse into his arms.

"Oh, I 'm so sorry!" said Imogen, looking down
upon them while Sir Basil placed Mrs. Potts upon
her feet, and while Mrs. Potts, angered almost to
tears, rubbed with her handkerchief at the damage
done to her dress. "I 'm so very sorry, dear Mrs.
Potts. I see that it is a little too steep for you. And
I did so want you to see this view. ' '

"I shall have to go back. I am very tired, quite
exhausted," said Mrs. Potts, in a voice that slightly
shook. "I wish you had taken the usual path. I
never dreamed that we were setting out on such a —
such a violent expedition."

"But this is my usual path," said Imogen, open
ing her eyes. "I 've never found it hard. And I
wanted you and Sir Basil to see my view. But, dear
Mrs. Potts, letjue go back with you. Sir Basil won't
mind finding his way alone, I 'm sure."

"Oh, no, thanks! No, I could n't think of spoil
ing your walk. No, I will go back, ' ' and Mrs. Potts,
turning away, began to retrace her steps.

"Be sure and lie down and rest; take a little nap
before dinner," Imogen called after her.

Mrs. Potts disappeared, and Imogen, when she
and Sir Basil stood together on the fortunate ob
stacle, said: "Poor, excellent creature. I am sorry.
She is displeased with me. I ought to have remem
bered that this was too rough for her and taken the
other path." Indeed, she had felt rather guilty as

254 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Mrs. Potts 's back, the ridge of its high stays strongly
marked by the slanting sunlight, descended among
the sylvan scenery.

"Yes, and she did so want to come, awfully keen on
it," said Sir Basil; "but I hope you won't think me
very brutal if I confess that / 'm not sorry. I want
to talk to you, you see," Sir Basil beamed.

' ' I would rather talk to you, too, ' ' Imogen smiled.
"My good old friend can be very wearisome. But it
was thoughtless of me to have brought her on this
way. ' '

They rested for a little while on their rock, look
ing down into the distance that was, indeed, worth
any amount of climbing. And afterward, when they
reached the fairyland where the laurel drifted
through the pine woods, and as she quoted "Wood-
Notes" to him and pointed out to him the delicate
splendors of the polished green, the clear, cold pink,
en a background of gray rock, Imogen could but
feel her little naughtiness well justified. It was de
lightful to be there in solitude with Sir Basil, and
the sense of sympathy that grew between her and
this supplanter of her father's was strange, but not
unsweet. It was n't only that she could help him,
and that that was always a claim to which one must
respond, but she liked helping him.

On the downward way, a little tired from the
rapidity of her ascent, she often gave her hand to
Sir Basil as she leaped from rock to rock, and they
smiled at each other without speaking, already like
the best of friends.

That evening, as she was going down to dinner,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 255

Imogen met her mother on the stairs. They spoke
little to each other during these days. Imogen felt
that her neutrality of attitude could best be main
tained by silence.

"Mrs. Potts came back," her mother said, smiling
a little, and, Imogen fancied, with the old touch of
timidity that she remembered in her. "She said
that you took her on a most fearful climb."

"What foolishness, poor dear Mrs. Potts! I took
her along the upper path."

"The upper path? Is there an upper path?"
Mrs. Upton descended beside her daughter. "I
thought that it was the usual path that had proved
too much for her. ' '

"I wanted them to see the view from the rock,"
said Imogen; "I forgot that poor Mrs. Potts would
find it too difficult a climb. ' '

"Oh, I remember, now, the rock! That is a diffi
cult climb, ' ' said Mrs. Upton.

Imogen wondered if her mother guessed at why
Mrs. Potts had been taken on it. She must feel it
of good augury, if she did, that her daughter should
already like Sir Basil enough to indulge in such an
uncharitable freak. Imogen felt her color rise a
little as she suspected herself and her motives re
vealed. It was not that she was n't quite ready to
own to a friendship with Sir Basil; but she did n't
want friendship to be confused with condonation,
and she did n't like her mother to guess that she
could use Mrs. Potts uncharitably.

XIX

ER magnanimity toward Jack— so
Imogen more and more clearly saw it
to have been— at the time of their
parting, had made it inevitable that
he should hold to his engagement to
visit them that summer, and even because of that
magnanimity, she felt, in thinking over again and
again the things that Jack had said of her and to
her, a deepening of the cold indignation that the
magnanimity had quelled at the moment of his
speaking them. Mingling with the sense of snapped
and bleeding ties was a longing, irrepressible, pro
found, violent, that he might be humiliated, pun
ished, brought to his knees in penitence and abase
ment.

Her friendship with Sir Basil, his devotion to her,
must be, though by no means humiliating, something
of a coal of fire laid on Jack's traitorous head; and
she saw at once that he was pleased, touched, but per
plexed, by what must seem to him an unforeseen
smoothing of her mother's path. He was there, she
guessed, far more to see that her mother's path was
made smooth than to try and straighten out their
own twisted and separate ways. He had come for

256

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 257

her mother, not for her; and Imogen did not know
whether it was more pain or anger that the realiza
tion gave her.

What puzzled him, what must have puzzled her
mother, must puzzle, indeed, anyone who perceived
it, — except, no doubt, the innocent Sir Basil him
self, — was that this friendship took up most of Sir
Basil's time.

To Sir Basil she stood for something lofty and
exquisite that did not, of course, clash with more
rudimentary, if deeper, affections, but that, perforce,
made them stand aside for the little interlude where
it soared and sang. There was, for Imogen, a sharp
sweetness in this fact and in Jack's bewildered ap
preciation of it, though for her own consciousness
the triumph was no satisfying one. After all, of
what use was it to soar and sing if Sir Basil were to
drop to earth so inevitably and so soon ? Outwardly,
at all events, this unforeseen change in the situation
gave her all the advantage in her meeting with Jack.
She was not the reproved and isolated creature that
he might have expected to find. She was not the
helpless girl, subjugated by an alien mother and
cast off by a faithless lover. No; calm, benignant,
lovely, she had turned to other needs; one was not
helpless while one helped; not small when others
looked up to one.

Under her calm was the lament ; under her unfal
tering smile, the loneliness and the burning of that
bitter indignation ; but Jack could not guess at that,
and if both felt difficulty in the neatly balanced
friendship pledged under the wisteria, if there was

17

258 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

a breathlessness for both in the tight-rope perform
ance, — where one false step might topple one over
into open hostility, or else, who knew, into complete
surrender, — it was Imogen who gained composure
from Jack's nervousness, and while he walked the
rope with a fluttering breath and an anxious eye
she herself could show the most graceful slides and
posturings in midair.

It was evident enough to everybody that the rela
tion was a changed, a precarious one, but all the
seeming danger was Jack's alone.

Imogen, while she swung and balanced, often
found her mother's eye fixed on her with a deep
preoccupation, and guessed that it was owing to her
mother's tactics that most of her tete-d-tetes with
Jack were due. Her poor mother might imagine
that she thus secured the solid foundation of the
earth for their footsteps, but Imogen knew that never
was the rope so dizzily swung as when she and Jack
were thus gently coerced into solitude together.

It was, however, a few days after Jack's arrival,
and a few days before the Pottses' departure, that
an interest came to her of such an absorbing nature
that it wrapped her mind away from the chill or
scorching sense of her own wrongs. It was with
the Pottses that the plan originated, and though the
Pottses were proving more trying than they had
ever been, they caught some of the radiance of their
own proposal. As instruments in a great purpose,
she could look upon them more patiently, though,
more than ever, it would need tact to prevent them
from shadowing the brightness that they offered.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 259

The plan, apparently, had been with them for some
time, its disclosure delayed until the moment suited to
its seriousness and sanctity, and it was then, between
the three, mapped out and discussed carefully before
they felt it ripe for further publicity. Then it was
Imogen who told them that the time had come for
the unfolding to her mother, and Imogen who led
them, on a sunny afternoon, into her mother's little
sitting-room where she sat writing at her desk.

Jack was there, reading near the window that
opened upon the veranda, but his presence was not
one to make the occasion less intimate, and Imogen
was glad of it. It was well that he should be a
witness to what she felt to be a confession of faith,
a confession that needed explicit defining, and of a
faith that he and all the others, by common consent,
seemed banded together to ignore.

So, with something of the air of a lovely verger,
she led her primed pair into the room and pointed
out two chairs to them.

Valerie, in her thin black draperies, looked pale
and jaded. She turned from her desk, keeping her
pen in her hand, and Imogen detected in her eye, as
it rested upon the Pottses, a certain impatience.

Tison, suddenly awakening, broke into passionate
barking; he had from the moment of Mr. Potts 's
arrival shown toward him a pronounced aversion,
and, backed under the safe refuge of his mistress's
chair, his sharp hostility disturbed the ceremonious
entrance.

"Please put the dog out, Jack," said Imogen;
"we have a very serious matter to talk over with

260 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

mama." But Valerie, stooping, caught him up,
keeping a soothing hand on his still defiant head,
while Mr. Potts unfolded the plan before her.

The wonderful purpose, the wonderful project,
was that Mr. Potts, aided by Imogen, should write
the life of the late Mr. Upton; and as the curtain
was drawn from before the shrined intention, Imo
gen saw that her mother flushed deeply.

"His name must not be allowed to die from
among us, Mrs. Upton. His ideals must become
more widely the ideals of his countrymen." Mr.
Potts, crossing his knees and throwing back his
shoulders, wrapped one hand, while he spoke, in a
turn of his flowing beard. ''They are in crying
need of such a message, now, when the tides of
social materialism and political corruption are at
their height. We may well say, to paraphrase the
great poet's words: 'Upton! thou shouldst be living
at this hour; New York hath need of thee. ' And
this need is one that it is our duty, and our high
privilege, to satisfy." Mr. Potts 's eye, heavy with
its responsibility, dwelt on Valerie's downcast face.
"No one, I may say it frankly, Mrs. Upton, is more
fitted than I to satisfy that need and to hand on that
message. No one had more opportunity than I for
understanding that radiant personality in its public
aspects. No one can feel more deeply than I that
duty and that privilege. Every American child
should know the name of Upton; every American
man and woman should count him among the
prophets of his generation. He did not ask for fame,
and we, his followers, ask none for him. No marble

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 261

temple, no effulgent light of stained glass ;— no. But
the violets and lilies of childhood laid upon his
grave; the tearful, yet joyous whisper of those who
come to share his spirit:— 'I, too, am of his race. I,
too, can with him strive and with him achieve.' '
Mr. Potts 's voice had risen, and Tison, once more,
gave a couple of hoarse, smothered barks.

Imogen, though reared on verbal bombast, had
found some difficulty in maintaining her expression
of uplifted approbation while Mr. Potts 's rhetoric
rolled; her willingness that Mr. Potts should serve
the cause did not blind her to his inadequacy unless
kept under the most careful control; and now,
though incensed by Tison 's interjection, she felt it
as something of a relief, seizing the opportunity of
Mr. Potts 's momentary confusion to suggest, in a
gentle and guarded voice: — "You might tell mama
now, Mr. Potts, how we want her to help us. ' '

"I am coming to that, Miss Imogen," said Mr.
Potts, with a drop from sonority to dryness ; — "I was
approaching that point when the dog interrupted
me ' ' ; and Mr. Potts cast a very venomous glance
upon Tison.

"Had not the dog better be removed, Mrs. Up
ton?" Mrs. Potts, under her breath, murmured,
leaning, as if in a pew and above prayer-books, for
ward in her chair. But Mrs. Upton seemed deaf to
the suggestion.

Mr. Potts cleared his throat and resumed some
what tersely :—" This is our project, Mrs. Upton,
and we have come this afternoon to ask you for
your furtherance of it. You, of course, can provide

262 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

me and Miss Imogen with many materials, inacces
sible otherwise, for this our work of love. Early
letters, to you;— early photographs;— reminiscences
of his younger days, and so on. Any suggestion as
to the form and scope of the book we will be glad,
very glad, to consider."

Valerie had listened without a word or gesture,
her pen still held in one hand, Tison pressed to her
by the other, as she sat sideways to the writing-
table. Imogen read in her face a mingled embarrass
ment and displeasure.

"I am sure we must all be very grateful to Mr.
Potts for this great idea of his, mama dear," she
said. "I thought of it, of course, as soon as papa
died; I knew that we all owed it to him, and to the
country that he loved and served so well ; but I did
not see my way, and have not seen it till now. I 've
so little technical knowledge. But now I shall con
tribute a little memoir to the biography and, in any
other way, give Mr. Potts all the aid I can. And
we hope that you will, too. Papa's name is one that
must not be allowed to fade. ' '

"I would rather talk of this at some other time,
and with Mr. Potts alone," Valerie now said, not
raising her eyes.

"But mama, this is my work, too. I must be
present when it is talked of."

"No, Jack, don't go," said Valerie, looking up at
the young man, who had made a gesture of rising.
"You and I, Imogen, will speak of this together,
and I will find an hour, later, when I will be free to
talk to Mr. Potts."

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 263

"Mama darling," said Imogen, masking her
rising anger in patient playfulness, "you are a lazy,
postponing person. You are not a bit busy, and
this is just the time to talk it over with us all. Of
course Jack must stay; we want his advice, too,
severe critic as we know him to be. Come, dear,
put down that pen." She bent over her and drew
the pen from her hand while Mr. Potts watched the
little scene, old suspicions clouding his countenance.

"My time is limited, Mrs. Upton," he observed;
"Mrs. Potts and I take our departure to-morrow
and, if I have heard aright, you expect acquaint
ances to dinner. Therefore, if you will pardon me,
I must ask you to let us have the benefit, here and
now, of your suggestions. ' '

Valerie had not responded by any smile to Imo
gen's rather baleful lightness, nor did she, by any
penitence of look, respond to Mr. Potts 's urgency.
She sat silent for a moment, and when she spoke it
was in a changed voice, dulled, monotonous. "If
you insist on my speaking, now— and openly, — I
must say to you that I altogether disapprove of your
project. You will never," said Valerie, with a rising
color, ' ' gain my consent to it. ' '

A heavy silence followed her words, the only
sound that of Tison's faint sniffings, as, his nose
outstretched and moving from side to side, he cau
tiously savored the air in Mr. Potts 's direction.
Mrs. Potts stirred slightly, and uttered a sharp,
"Tht— tht." Mr. Potts, his hand still stayed in his
beard, gazed from under the fringed penthouse of
his brows with an arrested, bovine look.

264 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

It was Imogen who broke the silence. Standing
beside her mother she had felt the shock of a curious
fulfilment go through her, as if she had almost ex
pected to hear what she now heard. She mastered
her voice to ask:— "We must demand your reasons
for this— this very strange attitude, mama."

Her mother did not raise her eyes. "I don't think
that your father was a man of sufficient distinction
to justify the publishing of his biography."

At this Mr. Potts breathed a deep, indignant vol
ume of sound, louder than a sigh, less articulate
than a groan, through the forests of his beard.

' ' Sufficient distinction, Mrs. Upton ! Sufficient dis
tinction! You evidently are quite ignorant of how
great was the distinction of your late husband.
Ask us what that distinction was— ask any of his
large circle of friends. It was a distinction not of
mind only, nor of birth and breeding— though that
was of the highest that this country has fostered—
but it was a distinction also of soul and spirit. Your
husband, Mrs. Upton, fought with speech and pen
the iniquities of his country, the country that, as
Miss Imogen has said, he loved and served. He
served, he loved, with mind and heart and hand.
He was the moving spirit in all the great causes of
his day, the vitalizing influence that poured faith
and will-power into them. He founded the coopera
tive community of Clackville; he organized the
society of the 'Doers' among our young men;— he
was a patron of the arts ; talent was fostered, cheered
on its way by him;— I can speak personally of three
young friends of mine — noble boys — whom he sent

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 265

to Paris at his own expense for the study of music
and painting; when the great American picture is
painted, the great American symphony composed,
it will be, in all probability, to your husband
that the country will owe the unveiling of its power.
And above all, Mrs. Upton, above all,"— Mr. Potts 's
voice dropped to a thunderous solemnity, — "his
character, his personality, his spirit, were as a light
shining in darkness to all who had the good fortune
to know him, and that light cannot, shall not, be
cribbed, cabined and confined to a merely private
capacity. It is a public possession and belongs to
his country and to his age."

Tison, all unheeded now, had leapt to the floor
and, during this address, had stood directly in front
of the speaker, barking furiously until Imogen, her
lips compressed, her forehead flushed, stooped,
picked him up, and flung him out of the room.

Mrs. Upton had sat quite motionless, only lifting
her glance now and then to Mr. Potts 's shaking
beard and flashing eye. And, after another pause,
in which only Mr. Potts 's deep breathing was heard,
—and the desperate scratching at the door of the
banished Tison,— she said in somber tones: — "I
think you forget, Mr. Potts, that I was never one of
my husband's appreciators. I am sorry to be forced
to recajl this fact to your memory."

It had been in all their memories, of course, a
vague, hovering uncertainty, a dark suspicion that
one put aside and would not look at. But to have
it now placed before them, and in these cold, these
somber tones, was to receive an icy douche of reality,

266 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

to be convicted of over-ready hope, over-generous
confidence.

It was Imogen, again, who found words for the
indignant deputation: "Is that lamentable fact any
reason why those who do appreciate him should not
share, their knowledge with others?"

"I think it is;— I hope so, Imogen," her mother
replied, not raising her eyes to her.

"You tell us that your own ignorance and blind
ness is to prevent us from writing my father's
life?"

"My opinion of your father's relative insignifi
cance is, I think, a sufficient reason."

"Do you quite realize the arrogance of that atti
tude?"

"I accept all its responsibility, Imogen."

"But we cannot accept it in you," said Imogen,
her voice sinking to the hard quiver of reality that
Jack well knew; — "we can't fail in our duty to him
because you have always failed in yours. We are
in no way bound to consider you— who never con
sidered him."

"Imogen," said her mother, raising her eyes with
a look of command ; ' ' you forget yourself. Be still. ' '

Imogen's face froze to stone. Such words, such a
look, she had never met before. She stood silent,
helpless, rage and despair at her heart.

But Mr. Potts did not lag behind his duty. His
hand still wrapped, Moses-like, in his beard, his
eyes bent in holy wrath .upon his hostess, he rose to
his feet, and Mrs. Potts, in recounting the scene —
one of the most thrilling of her life — always said

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 267

that never had she seen Delaney so superbly true,
never had she seen blood so tell.

"I must say to you, Mrs. Upton, with the deepest
pain," he said, "that I agree with Miss Imogen. I
must inform you, Mrs. Upton, that you have no
right, legal or moral, to bind us by your own short
coming. Miss Imogen and I may do our duty with
out your help or consent. ' '

"I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Potts,"
Valerie replied. She had, unseeingly, taken up her
pen again and, with a gesture habitual to her, was
drawing squares and crosses on the blotter under
her hand. The lines trembled. The angles of the
squares would not meet.

"But I have still something to say to you, Mrs.
Upton, ' ' said Mr. Potts ; " I have still to say to you
that, much as you have shocked and pained us in
the past, you have never so shocked and pained us
as now. "We had hoped for better things in you, —
wider lights, deeper insights, the unsealing of your
eyes to error and wrong in yourself; we had hoped
that sorrow would work its sacred discipline and
that, with your daughter's hand to guide you, you
were preparing to follow, from however far a dis
tance, in the footsteps of him who is gone. This
must count for us, always, as a dark day of life,
when we have seen a human soul turn wilfully from
the good held out to it and choose deliberately the
evil. I speak for myself and for Mrs. Potts — and in
sorrow rather than in wrath, Mrs. Upton. I say
nothing of your daughter; I bow my head before
that sacred filial grief. I—"

268 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

But here, suddenly, quiet, swift, irresistible as a
flame, Jack rose from his place. It seemed one
suave, unbroken motion, that by which he laid a
hand on Mr. Potts 's shoulder, a hand on Mrs. Potts 's
shoulder— she had risen in wonder and alarm at the
menacing descent upon her lord — laid a hand on
each, swept them to the door, opened it, swept them
out, and shut the door upon them. Then he turned
and leaned upon it, his arms folded.

"Perhaps, Jack, you wish to put me out, too,"
said Imogen in a voice of ice and fire. "Your argu
ments are conclusive. I hope that mama approves
her champion."

Valerie now seemed to lean heavily on the table;
she rested her forehead on her hand, covering her
eyes.

' ' Have you anything to say to me, mama, before
Jack executes his justice on me ? ' ' Imogen asked.

"Spare me, Imogen," her mother answered.

"Have you spared me?" said Imogen. "Have
you spared my father ? What right have you to ask
for mercy? You are a cruel, a shallow, a selfish
woman, and you break my heart as you broke his.
Now Jack, you need not put me out. I will go
of myself. ' '

When Jack had closed the door on her, he still
stood leaning against it at a distance from Valerie.
He saw that she wept, bitterly and uncontrollably ;
but, at first, awed by her grief, he did not dare ap
proach her. It was only when the sobs were quieted
that he went and stood near her.

"You were right, right," he almost whispered.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 269

She did not answer, and wept on as if there could
be no consolation for her in such Tightness.

"It had to come," said Jack; "she had to be
made to understand. And— you are right."

She was not thinking of herself. "Oh, Jack
Jack, ' ' she spoke at last, putting out her hand to his
and grasping it tightly ''How I have hurt her.
Poor Imogen; — my poor, poor child."

(MOGEN hardly knew where she went,
or how, when she left her mother— her
mother and Jack— and darted from
the house on the wings of a supreme
indignation, a supreme despair. Her
sense of niness was not that of Mr. Potts, and she
knew that her father's biography was doomed.
Against her mother's wish it could not, with any
grace, any dignity, be published. Mr. Potts would
put forth appreciation of his departed chief in the
small, grandiloquent review to which he contributed
—he had only delayed because of the greater project
—but such a tribute would be a sealing of public
failure rather than the kindling of public recogni
tion. Already her father, by that larger public,
was forgotten— forgotten; Mr. Potts would not
make him remembered.

The word "forgotten" seemed like the beat of
dark, tragic wings, bearing her on and on. The fire
of a bitter wrong burned in her. And it was not
the sense of personal wrong — though that was fierce,
—that made her flight so blind and headlong— not
her mother's cruelty nor Jack's sinister espousal of
the cause he saw as evil ; it was this final, this cul-

270

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 271

minating wrong to her father. His face rose before
her, while she fled, the deep, dark eyes dwelling
with persistence on her as though they asked,— she
seemed to hear the very words and in his very voice :
— ''What have they done to me, little daughter?
Did I deserve this heaping of dust upon my name; —
and from her hands ? ' '

For it was that. Dust, the dust of indifferent
time, of cold-hearted oblivion, was drifting over
him, hiding his smile, his eyes, his tears. It seemed
to mount, to suffocate her, as she ran, this dust,
strewn by her mother's hand. Even in her own
heart she had known the parching of its drifting
fall, known that crouching doubts— not of him, never
of him— but of his greatness, had lurked in ambush
since her mother had come home; — known that the
Pottses and their fitness had never before been so
clearly seen for the little that they were since her
mother — and all that her mother had brought— had
come into her life. And, before this drifting of
dust upon her faith in her father's greatness, her
heart, all that was deepest in it, broke into a greater
trust, a greater love, sobs beneath it. He was not
great, perhaps, as the world counted greatness; but
he was good, good, — he was sorrowful and patient.
He loved her as no one had ever loved her. His
ideals were hers and her love was his. Dust might
lie on his tomb; but never, never, in her heart.

"Ah, it 's cruel! cruel! cruel!" she panted, as
she ran, ran, up the rocky, woodland path, leaping
from ledge to ledge, slipping on the silky moss, fall
ing now and then on hands and knees, but not

272 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

pausing or faltering until she reached the murmur
ing pine- woods, the grassy, aromatic glades where
the mountain-laurel grew.

Pallid, disheveled, with tragic, unseeing eyes and
parted lips — the hollowed eyes, the sorrowful lips of
a classic mask— she rushed from the shadows of the
mountain-path into this place of sunlight and soli
tude. A doomed, distraught Antigone.

And so she looked to Sir Basil, who, his back
against a warm rock, a cigarette in one lazy hand,
was outstretched there before her on the moss, a
bush of flowering laurel at his head, and, at his feet,
beyond tree-tops, the steep, far blue of the lower
world. He was gazing placidly at this view, empty
of thought and even of conscious appreciation,
wrapped in a balmy contentment, when, with the
long, deep breath of a hunted deer, Imogen leaped
from darkness into light, and her face announced
such disaster that, casting aside the cigarette, spring
ing to his feet, he seized her by the arms, thinking
that she might fall before him. And indeed she
would have cast herself face downward on the grass
had he not been there; and she leaned forward on
his supporting hands, speechless, breathing heavily,
borne down by the impetus of her headlong run.
Then, her face hidden from him as she leaned, she
burst into sobs.

"Miss Upton ! — Imogen ! — My dear child ! — " said
Sir Basil, in a crescendo of distress and solicitude.

She leaned there on his hands weeping so bitterly
and so helplessly that he finished his phrase by put-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 273

ting an arm around her, and so more effectually sup
porting her, so satisfying, also, his own desire to
comfort and caress her.

The human touch, the human tenderness — though
him she hardly realized — drew her grief to articu-
lateness. "Oh — my father! — my father! — Oh —
what have they done to you!" she gasped, leaning
her forehead against Sir Basil's shoulder.

"Your father?" Sir Basil repeated soothingly,
since this departed personality seemed a menace
that might easily be dealt with. "What is it?
What have they done? How can I help you? My
dear child, do treat me as a friend. Do tell me
what is the matter."

"It 's mama! mama! — she has broken my heart
—as she broke his," sobbed Imogen, finding her
former words. Already, such was the amazing irony
of events, Sir Basil seemed, more than anyone in
the world, to take that dead father's place, to help
her in her grief over him. The puzzle of it inflicted
a deeper pang. "I can't tell you," she sobbed.
' ' But I can never, never forgive her ! ' '

"Forgive your mother?" Sir Basil repeated,
shocked. "Don't, I beg of you, speak so. It 's
some misunderstanding."

"No!— No!— It is understanding— it is the whole
understanding ! It has come out at last — the truth —
the dreadful truth."

"But can't you tell me? can't you explain?"

She lifted her face and drew away from him as
she said, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes:

18

274 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"You never knew him. You cannot care for bun-
no one who cares, as much as you do, for her,— can
ever care for him."

Sir Basil had deeply flushed. He led her to the
sunny rock and made her sit down on a low ledge,
where she leaned forward, her face in her hands,
long sighs of exhaustion succeeding her tears.
"I know nothing about your father, as you say,
and I do care, very much, for your mother," said
Sir Basil after a little while. "But I care for you,
very much, too. ' '

"Ah, but you could never care for me so much
as to think her wrong."

"I don't know about that. Why not?— if she is
wrong. One often thinks people one is fond of very
wrong. Do you know," and Sir Basil now sat down
beside her, a little lower, on the moss, ' ' do you know
you '11 make me quite wretched if you won't have
confidence in me. I really can't stand seeing you
suffer and not know what it 's about. I don't— I
can't feel myself such a stranger as that. Won't
you think of me," he took one of her hands and
held it as he said this, "won't you think of me as,
well, as a sort of affectionate old brother, you know ?
I want to be trusted, and to see if I can't help you.
Don't be afraid," he added, "of being disloyal— of
making me care less, you know, for your mother, by
anything you say; for you would n't."

Leaning there, her face hidden, while she half
heard him, it struck her suddenly, a shaft of light
in darkness, that, indeed, he might help her. She
dropped her hand to look at him and, with all its

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 275

tear-stained disfigurement, he thought that he had
never seen anything more heavenly than that look.
It sought, it sounded him, pleaded with and caressed
him. And, with all its solemnity, there dawned in
it a tenderness deeper than any that he had ever
seen in her.

''I do trust you," she said. "I think of you as a
near, a dear friend. And, since you promise me that
it will change you in nothing, I will tell you. I
believe that perhaps you can help us, — my father
and me. You must count me with him, you know,
always. We want to write a life of him, Mr. Potts
and I. Mr. Potts— you may have seen it— is an
ordinary person, ordinary but for one thing, one
great and beautiful thing that papa and I always
felt in him,— and that beautiful thing is his depth
of unselfish devotion to great causes and to good
people. He worked for my father like a faithful,
loving dog. He had an accurate knowledge of all
the activities that papa's life was given to— all the
ideals it aimed at and attained — yes, yes, attained, —
whatever they may say. He has a very skilful pen,
and is in touch with the public press. So, though I
would, of course, have wished for a more adequate
biographer, I was glad and proud to accept his offer ;
and I would have overlooked, revised, everything.
"We felt,— and by we, I mean not only Mr. and Mrs.
Potts, but all his many, many friends, all those
whose lives he loved and helped and lifted— that
we owed it to the world he served not to let his
name fade from among us. You cannot dream,
Sir Basil, of what sort of man my father was. His

276 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

life was one long devotion to the highest things, one
long service of the weak and oppressed, one long
battle with the wrong. Those who are incapable of
following him to the heights can give you no true
picture of him. I will say nothing, in this respect,
of mama, except that she could not follow him, —
and that she made him very, very unhappy, and
with him, me. For I shared all his griefs. She left
us; she laughed at all the things we cared and
worked for. My father never spoke bitterly of her ;
his last words, almost, were for her, words of tender
ness and pity and forgiveness. He had the capacity
that only great souls have, of love for littler natures.
I say this much so that you may know that any idea
that you may have gathered of my father is, per
force, a garbled, a false one. He was a noble, a
wonderful man. Everything I am I owe to him."

Imogen had straightened herself, the traces of
weeping almost gone, her own fluency, as was usual
with her, quieting her emotion, even while her own
and her father's wrongs, thus objectivized in careful
phrases, made indignation at once colder and deeper.
Her very effort to quell indignation, to command
her voice to an even justice of tone before this lover
of her mother 's, gave it a resonant quality, curiously
impressive. And, as she looked before her, down
into the blue profundities, the sense of her own
sincerity seemed to pulse back to her from her silent
listener, and filled her with a growing consciousness
of power over him.

"This morning," she took up her theme on that
resonant note, deepened to a tragic pitch, "we went

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 277

to mama— Mr. Potts and I — to tell her of our
project of commemoration, to ask her cooperation.
We wanted to be very generous with her, to take
her help and her sympathy for granted. I should
have felt it an insult to my mother had I told Mr.
Potts that we must carry on our work without con
sulting her. She received us with cold indifference.
She tried not to listen, when she heard what our
errand was. And her indifference became hostility,
when she understood. All her old hatred for what
he was and meant, all her fundamental antagonism
to the purpose of his life— and to him — came at last,
openly, to the light. She was forced to reveal her
self. Not only has she no love, no reverence for
him, but she cannot bear that others should learn to
love him and to reverence him. She sneered at his
claim to distinction; she refused her consent to our
project. It is a terrible thing for me to say — but I
must— and you will understand me— you who will
not care less for her because she is so wrong — what
I feel most of all in her attitude is a childish, yet
a cruel, jealousy. She cannot endure that she
should be so put into the dark by the spreading of
his light. The greater his radiance is shown to be,
the more in the wrong will all her life be proved; —
it is that that she will not hear of. She wants him
to be obscure, undistinguished, negligible, because
it 's that that she has always thought him. ' '

Sir Basil, while she spoke, had kept his eyes fixed
on the hand he held, a beautiful hand, white, curi
ously narrow, with pointed, upturned finger-tips.
Once or twice a dull color rose to his sunburned

278 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

cheek, but in his well-balanced mind was a steady
perception of what the filial grief and pain must be
from which certain words came. He could not re
sent them; it was inevitable that a child who had
so loved her father should so think and feel. And
her self-control, her accurate fluency, answered
with him for her sincerity as emotion could not have
done. Passion would never carry this noble girl
into overstatement. Fairness constrained him to
admit, while he listened, that dark color in his
cheek, that her view of her father was more likely
to be right than her mother's view. An unhappily
married woman was seldom fair. Mrs. Upton had
never mentioned her husband to him, never alluded
to him except in most formal terms; but the facts
of her flight from the marital hearth, the fact that
he had made her so unhappy, had been to him suffi
cient evidence of Mr. Upton's general unworthiness.
Now, though Imogen's tragic ardor did not commu
nicate any of her faith in her father's wonder or
nobility, it did convince him of past unfairness
toward, no doubt, a most worthy man. Incompati
bility, that had been the trouble ; he one of these
reformer people, very much in earnest; and Mrs.
Upton, dear and lovely though she was, with not a
trace of such enthusiasm in her moral make-up.

So, when Imogen had finished, though he sat
silent for a little while, though beneath the steady
survey of what she put before him was a stirring
of trouble, it was in a tone of quiet acceptance that
he at last said, looking up at her, "Yes; I quite
see what you feel about it. To you, of course, they
must look like that, your mother's reasons. They

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 279

must look very differently to her, that goes without
saying. We can't really make out these things, you
know, these fundamental antagonisms; I never
knew it went as far as that. But I quite see. Poor
child. I 'm very sorry. It is most awfully hard
;>n you."

"Don't think of me!" Imogen breathed out on a
note of pain. "It 's not of myself I 'm thinking,
not of my humiliation and despair — but of him ! —
of him!— Is it right that I should submit? Ought
a project like ours to be abandoned for such a
reason ? ' '

Again Sir Basil was silent for some moments, con
sidering the narrow white hands. "Perhaps she '11
come round, — think better of it."

"Ah !— " it was now on a note of deep, of tremu
lous hope that she breathed it out, looking into his
eyes with the profound, searching look so moving
to him; "Ah! — it 's there, it 's there, that you
could help me. She would never yield to me. She
might to you. ' '

"Oh, I don't think that likely," Sir Basil pro
tested, the flush darkening.

"Yes, yes," said Imogen, leaning toward him
above his clasp of her hand. "Yes, if anything is
likely that is so. If hope is anywhere, it 's there.
Don't you see, in her eyes I stand for him. To yield
to me would be like yielding to him, would be his
triumph. That 's what she can't forgive in me—
that I do stand for him, that I live by all that she
rejected. She would never yield to me; — but she
might yield for you."

"Shall I speak to her about it?" Sir Basil asked

280 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

abruptly, after another moment in which Imogen's
hand grasped his tightly, its soft, warm fingers more
potent in appeal than even her eyes had been. And
now, again, she leaned toward him, her eyes inundat
ing him with radiant trust and gratitude, her hands
drawing his hand to her breast and holding it there,
so clasped.

"Will you?— Oh, will you?— dear Sir Basil."

Sir Basil stammered a little. "I '11 have a try—
It 's hard on you, I think. I don't see why you
should n 't have your heart 's desire. It 's an awfully
queer thing to do, — but, for your sake, I '11 have a
try— put it to her, you know."

"Ah, I knew that you were big," said Imogen.

He looked at her, his hand between her hands.
The flowering laurel was behind her head. The
pine-forest murmured about them. The sky was
blue above them, and the deep blue of the distance
lay at their feet. Suddenly, as they looked into
each other's eyes, it dawned in the consciousness of
both that something was happening.

It was to Sir Basil that it was happening. Imo
gen's was but the consciousness of his experience.
Such a thing could hardly happen to Imogen.
Neither her senses, nor her emotions, nor her imag
ination played any dominant part in her nature.
She was incapable of falling in love in the helpless,
headlong, human fashion that the term implies.
But though such feeling lacked, the perception of
it in others was swift, and wrhile she leaned to Sir
Basil in the sunlight, while she clasped his hand
to her breast, while their eyes dwelt deeply on each

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 281

other, she seemed to hear, like a rising chime of won
der and delight, the ringing of herald bells that
sang: "Mine— mine— mine— if I choose to take
him."

Wonderful indeed it was to feel this influx of
certain power. Sunlight, like that about them-,
seemed to rise, slowly, softly, within her, like the
upwelling of a spring of joy.

It was happening, it had happened to him, his
eyes told her that; but whether he knew as she did
she doubted and, for the beautiful moment, it added
a last touch of charm to her exultation to know that,
while she was sure, she could leave that light veil
of his wonder shimmering between them.

With the vision of the unveiling her mind leaped
to the thought of her mother and of Jack, and with
that thought came a swift pulse of vengeful glad
ness. So she would make answer to them both — the
scorner — the rejector. Not for a moment must she
listen to the voices of petty doubts and pities.
This love, that lay like a bauble in her mother's
hand— an unfit ornament for her years— would
shine on her own head like a diadem. Unasked, un
dreamed of, it had turned to her ; it was her highest
duty to keep and wear it. It was far, far more
than her duty to herself ; it was her duty to this man,
finished, mature, yet full of unawakened possibility ;
it was her duty to that large, vague world that his
life touched, a world where her young faiths and
vigors would bring a light such as her mother's gay
little taper could never spread. These thoughts, and
others, flashed through Imogen's mind, with the

282 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

swiftness and exactitude of a drowning vision. Yet,
after the long moment of vivid realization, it was
at its height that a qualm, a sinking overtook her.
The gift had come; of that she was sure. But its
triumphant displayal might be delayed— nay, might
be jeopardized. Some perverse loyalty in his nature,
some terrified decisiveness of action on her mother's
part, and the golden reality might even be made to
crumble. For one moment, as the qualm seized her,
she saw herself — and the thought was like a flying
flame that scorched her lips as it passed— she saw
herself sweeping aside the veil, sinking upon his
breast, with tears that would reveal him to himself
and her to him.

But it was impossible for Imogen to yield open-
eyed to temptation that could not be sanctified. Her
strong sense of personal dignity held her from the
impulse, and a quick recognition, too, that it might
lower her starry altitude in his eyes. She must
stand still, stand perfectly still, and he would come
to her. She could protect him from her mother's
clinging— this she recognized as a strange yet an
insistent duty — but between him and her there must
not be a shadow, an ambiguity.

The radiance of the renunciation, the resolve, was
in her face as she gently released his hand, gently
rose, standing smiling, with a strange, rapt smile,
above him.

Sir Basil rose, too, silent, and looking hard at her.
She guessed at the turmoil, the wonder of his honest
soul, his fear lest she did guess it, and, with the fear,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 283

the irrepressible hope that, in some sense, it was
echoed.

"My dear, dear friend," she said, putting her
hand on his shoulder, as though with the gesture
she dubbed him her knight, "my more than friend —
shall it be elder brother? — I believe that you will
be able to help me and my father. And if you fail —
my gratitude to you will be none the less great. I
can 't tell you how I trust you, how I care for you. ' '

From his face she looked up at the sky above them ;
and in the sunlight her innocent, uplifted smile
made her like a heavenly child. "Is n't it wonder
ful? — beautiful?— ' she said, almost conquering
her inner fear by the seeming what she wished to be.
"Look up, Sir Basil! — Does n't it seem to heal
everything,— to glorify everything, — to promise
everything ? ' '

He looked up at the sky, still speechless. Her
face, her smile — the sky above it— did it not heal,
glorify, promise in its innocence? If a great thing
claims one suddenly, must not the lesser things in
evitably go?— Could one hold them?— Ought one to
try to hold them? There was tumult in poor Sir
Basil's soul, the tumult of partings and meetings.

But when everything culminated in the longing
to seize this heavenly child— this heavenly woman —
to seize and kiss her— a sturdy sense of honesty
warned him that not so could he, with honor, go
forward. He must see his way more clearly than
that. Strange that he had been so blind, till now, of
where all ways, since his coming to Vermont, had

284 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

been leading him. He could see them now, plainly
enough.

Taking Imogen's hand once more, he pressed it,
dropped it, looked into her eyes and said, as they
turned to the descent: "That was swearing eternal
friendship, was n't it?"

XXI

JOLENT emotions, in highly civilized
surroundings, may wonderfully be ef
faced by the common effort of those
who have learned how to live. Of
these there were, perhaps, not many in
our little group ; but the guidance of such a past
mistress of the art as Imogen's mother steered the
social craft, on this occasion, past the reefs and
breakers into a tolerably smooth sea.

With an ally as facile, despite his personal per
turbations, as Sir Basil, a friend like Mrs. Wake at
hand— a friend to whom one had never to make
explanations, yet who always understood what was
wanted of her, — with a presence so propitious as the
calm and unconscious Miss Bocock, the sickening
plunges of explanation and recrimination that ac
company unwary seafaring and unskilful seaman
ship were quite avoided in the time that passed be
tween Valerie's appearance at the tea-table — where
she dispensed refreshment to Mrs. Wake, Mis?
Bocock, and Jack only— and the meeting of all the
ship 's crew at dinner.

Valerie, in that ominous interlude, even when Sir
Basil appeared on the veranda, alone, but saying

285

286 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

that he had been for a walk with Miss Upton, who
was tired and had gone to her room to rest, even
when she observed that the Pottses had decided upon
maintaining a splendid isolation in their own cham
bers, did not permit the ship to turn for one moment
in such a direction. She had tea sent up to Imogen
and tea sent up to the Pottses; but no messages of
any sort accompanied either perfectly appointed
tray, and when the dinner hour arrived she faced
the Pottses' speechless dignity and Imogen's mater
dolorosa eyelids with perfect composure. She
seemed, on meeting the Pottses, neither to ignore nor
to recall.

She seemed to understand speechlessness, yet to
take it lightly, as if on their account. She talked at
them, through them, with them, really, in such a
manner that they were drawn helplessly into her
shuttle and woven into the gracefully gliding pat
tern of social convention in spite of themselves. In
fact, she preserved appearances with such success
that everyone, to each one's surprise, was able to
make an excellent dinner.

After high emotions, as after high seas, the appe
tite is capricious, shrinking to the shudder of repul
sion or rising to w^hetted keenness. Valerie had the
satisfaction of seeing that her crew, as they assured
themselves — or, rather, as she assured them — that
the waters were silken in their calm, showed the
reaction from moral stress in wholesome sensuous
gratification. Even Mrs. and Mr. Potts, even Imo
gen, were hungry.

She herself had still too strongly upon her the

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 287

qualm of imminent shipwreck to do more than seem
tO join them; but it was only natural that the cap
tain, who alone was conscious of just how near the
reefs were and of just how threatening the horizon
loomed, should lack the appetite that his reassuring
presence evoked. Jack noticed that she ate nothing,
but he alone noticed it.

It was perhaps Jack who noticed most universally
at that wonderful little dinner, where the shaded
candle-light seemed to isolate them in its soft, dif
fused circle of radiance and the windows, with their
faintly stirring muslin curtains, to open on a warm,
mysterious ocean of darkness. The others were too
much occupied with their own particular miseries
and in their own particular reliefs to notice how
the captain fared.

Mrs.. Wake must, no doubt, guess that something
was up, but she could n't in the least guess how
much. She watched, but her observation, her watch
fulness, could be in no sense like his own. Miss
Bocock, in a low-cut blouse of guipure and pale-blue
satin, her favorite red roses pinned on her shoulder,
her fringe freshly and crisply curled above her eye
glasses, was the only quite unconscious presence, and
so innocent was her unconsciousness that it could
not well be observant. Indeed, in one sinking mo
ment, she leaned forward, with unwonted kindliness,
to ask the stony Mrs. Potts if her headache was better,
a question received with a sphinx-like bow. Apart,
however, from the one or two blunders of uncon
sciousness, Jack saw that Miss Bocock was very
useful to Valerie; more useful than himself, on

288 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

whom, he felt, her eye did not venture to rest for
any length of time. Too tragic a consciousness would
rise between them if their glances too deeply inter
mingled.

Miss Bocock's gaze, behind its crystal medium, was
a smooth surface from which the light balls of
dialogue rebounded easily. Miss Bocock thought
that she had never talked so well upon her own
topics as on this occasion, and from the intentness
of the glances turned upon her she might well have
been misled as to her effectiveness. The company
seemed to thirst for every detail as to her theory of
the rise of the Mycenean civilization. Mrs. Wake,
for all her tact, was too wary, too observant, to fill
so perfectly the part of buffer-state as was Miss
Bocock.

If one wanted pure amusement, with but the
faintest tincture of pity to color it, the countenances
of the Pottses were worth close study. That their
silence was not for one moment allowed to become
awkward, to themselves, or to others, Jack recog
nized as one of Valerie's miracles that night, and
when he considered that the Pottses might not guess
to whom they owed their ease, he could hardly pity
them. That their eyes should not meet his, except
for a heavy stare or two, was natural. After this
meeting in the mirage-like oasis that Valerie made
bloom for them all, he knew that for the Pottses he
would be relegated to the sightless, soundless Saharas
of a burning remembrance. It was but a small part
of his attention that was spared to the consciousness
that Mr. Potts was very uplifted, that Mrs. Potts
was very tense, and that Mrs. Potts 's dress, as if in

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 289

protest against any form of relaxation and condona
tion, was very, very high and tight. Indeed, Mrs.
Potts, in her room, before the descent, had said to
her husband, in the mutual tones of their great situ
ation, laying aside with resolution the half-high
bodice that, till then, had marked her concession to
fashionable standards, "Never, never again, in her
house. Let her bare her bosom if she will. I shall
protest against her by every symbol.'

Mr. Potts, with somber justice, as though he ex
onerated an Agrippina from one of many crimes,
had remarked that the bosom, as far as he had ob
served it, had been slightly veiled; but:— "I under
stand those tuckers," Mrs. Potts had replied with a
withering smile, presenting her back for her hus
band to hook, a marital office that usually left Mr.
Potts in an exhausted condition.

So Mrs. Potts this evening seemed at once to
mourn, to protest and to accuse, covered to her chin
with a relentless black.

But, though Jack saw all this, he was not in the
humor for more than a superficial sense of amuse
ment. With his excited sense of mirth was a deeper
sense of disaster, and the poor Pottses were at -once
too grotesque and too insignificant to satisfy it.

It was upon Imogen and Sir Basil that his eye
most frequently turned. Valerie had put them to
gether, separated from herself by the whole length
of the table ; Mr. Potts was on Imogen 's other hand ;
Miss Bocock sat between Mr. Potts and Valerie, and
Jack, Mrs. Wake and Mrs. Potts brought the circle
round to Sir Basil, a neat gradation of affinities.

Jack, in a glance, had seen that Imogen had been

19

290 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

passionately weeping; he could well imagine that
grief. But before her pallid face and sunken eyes
he knew that his heart was hardened. Never, judged
from a dispassionate standard, had Imogen been so
right, and her Tightness left him indifferent. If
she had been wrong ; if she had been, in some sense
guilty, if her consciousness had not been so su
premely spotless, he would have been sorrier for her.
It was the woman beside him, whose motives he
could not penetrate, whose action to-day had seemed
to him mistaken, it was for her that his heart ached.
Imogen he seemed to survey from across a far, wide
chasm of alienation.

Sir Basil was evidently as bent on helping her as
was her mother. He talked very gaily, tossing back
all Valerie's balls. He rallied Miss Bocock on her
radical tendencies, and engaged in a humorous dis
pute with Mrs. Wake in defense of racing. Imogen,
when he spoke, turned her eyes on him and listened
gravely. When her mother spoke, she looked down
at her plate. But once or twice Jack caught her
eye, while her mother's attention was engaged else
where, resting upon her with a curious, a piercing in-
tentness. Such a cold glitter, as of steel, was in
the glance, that, instinctively, his own turned on
Valerie, as if he had felt her threatened.

This instinct of protection was oddly on the watch
to-night. Under the sense of mirth and disaster a
deeper thing throbbed in him, some inarticulate sor
row, greater than the apparent causes warranted,
that mourned with and for her. In the illumination
of this intuition Valerie, he thought, had never been

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 291

so lovely as to-night. It seemed to him that her
body, with its indolence of aspect, expressed an al
most superhuman courage. She was soft and frag
ile and weary, leaning there in her transparent
black, her cheek in her hand, her elbow, in its loose
sleeve, resting on the table ; but she made him think
of a reed that the tempest could not break.

Her face was pale, he had never seen it so drained
of its dusky rose. There was something inexpressi
bly touching in the flicker of her smile on the white,
white cheek, in the innocent gaiety of the dimple,
placed high and recalling Japanese suggestions,
vague as the scent of sandal-wood. She, too, had
wept, as he well knew, and his heart ached dully as
he thought of that bitter weeping, those tears of hu
mility and pain. Her eyelids, strangely discolored,
were like the petals of a melancholy flower, and her
eyes were heavy and gentle.

A vague, absurdly alarming sense of presage grew
upon him as his eyes went from this face to Imogen 's
— so still, so cold, so unanswering, lightened, as if
from a vail of heavy cloud, by that stealthy, baleful,
illuminating glance. In Imogen's whole bearing he
read renouncement, but renouncement, in her hand,
would assuredly prove a scourge for her mother's
shoulders. For the time that they must be to
gether, she and her mother, her sense of her own
proved Tightness would be relentless, as inflexible as
and as relentless as her sense of bitter wrong.

Valerie's shoulders were bared and bowed. She
was ready to take it all. But it was here, for Jack,
that the deep instinct of protection centered at last

292 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

in a clear decision; it was here that he felt himself
rush in with the only solution, the only salvation.
At the thought of it, that one solution, his heart
ached more sharply, but it ached for himself alone.
For she must go away ; yes, that was the only escape ;
she must go away at once, with Sir Basil. She had
failed. She had said it to him that morning in a
few broken sentences before relinquishing the hand
she grasped.

"I 've done more than fail. I 've wrecked
things"; and she had smiled piteously upon him
and left him.

He knew of what she spoke, of the disaster that,
as she had seen, finally and irrevocably had over
taken his love for her child.

And it was true, of course. She had failed. She
had wrecked things; but in his eyes, the failure she
bore, the destruction she brought, made others dark,
not her. She must accept the irony of things, — it
was not on her that its shadow rested, and she
must go, back to her own place, back to her own
serene, if saddened, sunlight, where she could
breathe again and be safe from scourgings. Thank
heaven for Sir Basil, was Jack's thought, over that
sharpened ache. And it was with this thought that,
for Jack, came the first sinister whisper, the whisper
that, as suddenly as the hiss of a viper trodden upon
in the grass, warned him of the fulfilment, clear,
startling, unimaginable, of all dim presages.

He always remembered, ludicrously, that they had
reached the sweet when the whisper came, and with
his recollection of its import there mingled for him

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 293

always the incongruous association of sliced peaches
and iced cream. He had just helped himself to this
dish when, raising his eyes, he saw Sir Basil looking
at Imogen.

It was, apparently, a calm, a thoughtful look, and
as Imogen's eyes were downcast to her fruit and
cream, which she was eating with much appetite, she
did not then meet it. But it was a look a little of?
guard ; — his perception of that was the first low sibi
lant that reached him ; — it was a look full of gentle
solicitude, full of brooding, absorbed intentness ; and
presently, when Imogen, as if aware of it, glanced
up and met it, Sir Basil deeply flushed and turned
his eyes away.

This passage was a small enough cause to make
one suddenly grow very chilly; Jack tried to tell
himself that, as he mechanically went on eating.
Perhaps Imogen had confided in Sir Basil; perhaps
he agreed with her, was sorry, sympathetic, and em
barrassed by a sympathy that set him against the
woman he loved; perhaps he already felt a protect
ing, paternal affection for Imogen, just as he him
self, in the absurd inversions of their situation, felt
a protecting filial affection for Valerie. But at that
thought — as if the weak links of his chain of possi
bilities had snapped and left him at the verge of a
chasm, a sudden echo in himself revealed depths of
disastrous analogy. It was revelation that came to
Jack, rather than self-revelation; the instinct that
liamed up in him at this moment was like a torch in
i twilit cavern. He might have seen the looming
ihapes fairly well without it, but, by its illumination,

294 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

every uncertainty started out into vivid light and
dark. The fact that his own feeling was so far
other than filial did not detain him. His light was
not turned upon himself; of himself he only knew,
in that dazzling moment, that he was armed as her
knight, armed for her battle as a son could not have
been ; it was upon Sir Basil, upon Imogen, that the
torch-light rested.

He looked presently from them to Valerie. Did
she know at all what was her peril? Had she seen
at all what threatened her 1 Her face told him noth
ing. She was talking to Miss Bocock, and her se
renity, as of mellow moonlight, cooled and calmed
him a little so that he could wonder whether the
peril was very imminent. Even if the unbelievable
had happened; — even if Imogen had ensnared Sir
Basil — Jack's thoughts, in dealing with poor Imo
gen, passed in their ruthlessness beyond the facts —
even if she had ensnared him, surely, surely, she
could not keep him. The glamour would pass from
him. He would be the first to fight clear of it were
he fully aware of what it signified. For Imogen
knew, — the torch-light had revealed that to Jack, —
Imogen knew, he and Imogen, alone, knew. Sir
Basil did n't and Valerie did n't. Single-handed he
might save them both. Save them both from
Imogen.

To this strange landing-place had his long voyage,
away from old ports, old landmarks, brought him;
and on its rocks he stepped to-night, bound on a
perilous quest in an unknown country. It seemed
almost like the coast of another planet, so desolate,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 295

so lonely. But beyond the frowning headlines he
imagined that he would find, far inland, quiet green
stretches where he would rest, and think of her.
The landing was bathed in a light sadder, but
sweeter far than the sunlight of other countries.
Here he was to fight, not for himself, but for her.

The first move of strategy was made directly after
dinner. He asked Imogen to come out and see the
moonlight with him.

A word to the wise was a word to Mrs. Wake, who
safely cornered Miss Bocock and the Pottses over a
game of cards. Jack saw Valerie and Sir Basil es
tablished on the veranda, and then led Imogen away,
drew her from her quarry, along the winding path
in the woods.

XXII

ALERIE, on sinking into the low
wicker chair, and drawing her chud-
dah about her shoulders, drawing it
closely, although the evening was not
cool had expected to find Jack, or Mrs.
Wake, or Miss Bocock presently beside her.

She had watched, as they wandered, all of them,
into the drawing-room, the hovering, long since fa
miliar to her, of Sir Basil. She had seen that his
eye was as much on Imogen as on herself. She
had seen Imogen's eye meet his with a deep in
sistence. AVhat it commanded, this eye, Valerie
did not know, but she had grown accustomed to see
ing such glances obeyed and she expected to watch,
presently, Imogen's and Sir Basil's departure into
the moonlit woods.

It was, therefore, with surprise that she looked up
to see Sir Basil's form darken against the sky. He
asked if he might smoke his cigar beside her, and
the intelligent smile he knew so well rested upon
him as he took the chair next hers.

In the slight pause that followed, both were think
ing that, since their parting in England they had
really been very seldom alone together, and in Sir

29C

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 297

Basil's mind was a wonder, very disquieting, as to
what, really, had been the understanding under the
parting.

He was well aware that any vagueness as to un
derstanding had been owing entirely to Valerie, well
aware that had she not always kept about them the
atmosphere of sunny frankness and gay friendship,
he would without doubt have entangled himself and
her in the complications of an avowed devotion, and
that long before her husband's death. For how
she had charmed him, this gay, this deep-hearted
friend, descending suddenly on his monotonous life
with a flutter of wings, a flash of color, a liquid pulse
of song, like some strange, bright bird. Charm had
grown to affection and to trustful need, and then to
the restlessness and pain and sadness of his hidden
passion. He would have spoken, he knew it very
well, were it not that she had never given him the
faintest chance to speak, the faintest excuse for
speaking. She had kept him from any avowal so
completely that he might well, now, wonder if his
self-control had not been owing far more to the
intuition of hopelessness than to mere submission.
Could she have kept him so silent, had she been the
least little bit in love with him? He had, of course,
been tremendously in love with her— it was bewil
dering to use the past tense, indeed — and she, of
course, clever creature that she was, must have
known it; but had n't he been very fatuous in imag
ining that beneath her fond, playful friendship lay
the possibility of a deeper response?

Since seeing her again, in her effaced, maternal

298 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

role, he had realized that she was more middle-aged
than he had ever thought her, and since coming to
Vermont there had been a new emphasis in this
cool, gray quality that removed her the more from
associations with youth and passion. So was he
brought, by the dizzy turn of events, to hoping that
loyalty to his own past love was, for him, the only
question, since loyalty to her, in that respect, had
never been expected of him.

Yet, as he took his place beside her and looked at
her sitting there in the golden light, wrapped round
in white, very wan and pale, despite her smile, he
felt the strangest, twisted pang of divided desire.

She was wan and she was pale, but she was not
cool, she was not gray ; he felt in her, as strongly as
in far-off days, the warmth and fragrance, and knew
that it was Imogen who had so cast her into a
shadow. Her image had grown dim on that very
first time of seeing Imogen standing as Antigone in
the rapt, hushed theater. That dawn had cul
minated to-day in the over-mastering, all-revealing
burst of noon, and from its radiance the past had
been hardly visible except as shadow. But now he
sat in the moonlight, the past personified in the
quiet presence beside him, and the memory of noon
day itself became mirage-like and uncertain. He
almost felt as if he had been having a wild dream,
and that Valerie's glance wras the awakening from
it.

To think of Imogen's filial grief and of his prom
ise to her,— a promise deeply recalled to him by the
message of her tear- worn eyes,— to steady his mind

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 299

to the task of friendly helpfulness, was to put aside
the accompanying memory of eyes, lips, gold hair
on a background of flowering laurel, was to re-enter,
through sane, kind altruism, his old, normal state of
consciousness, and to shut the door on something very
sweet and wonderful, to shut the door — in Imogen's
phraseology— on his soul, but, in doing that, to be
loyal to the older hope.

Perhaps, he reflected, looking at Valerie through
the silvery circles of smoke, it depended on her as to
whether the door should remain shut on all the high
visions of the last weeks. After all, it had always
depended on her, tremendously, as to where he
should find himself. Certainly he could n't regard
her as the antithesis of soul, though he did n't asso
ciate her with its radiant demonstration, yet he felt
that, if she so willed it, she could lock the door on
visions and keep him sanely, safely, sweetly beside
her for the future. If she really did care. Poor
Sir Basil, sitting there in his faint cloud of smoke,
while clouds of doubt and perplexity as impalpable
drifted through his mind, really could n't for the
life of him have told which solution he most hoped
for.

He plunged from the rather humiliating pause of
self-contemplation into the more congenial field of
action, with a last swift thought— most illuminating
of all— as he plunged— that in the results of action
he would find his test. If she cared for him — really
cared— she would grant his request; and if she
cared, why then, not only reawakened loyalty, but
some very deep acquiescence in his own nature,

300 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

would keep him beside her, and to-night would see
them as affianced lovers. It would be a pity to
have let one's new-found soul go; but, after all, it
was so very new that the pang of parting would
soon be over; that was a good point about middle-
age, one soon got over pangs, soon forgot visions.

"I want to talk to you about something. I 'm
going to ask you to be kinder to me, even, than
you 've ever been,"— so he approached the subject,
while the mingled peace and bitterness of the last
thoughts lingered with him. ''I 'm going to ask
you to let me be very indiscreet, very intimate.
It 's about something very personal."

Valerie no longer smiled, but she looked even
more gentle and even more intelligent. "I wilJ
be as kind as you can possibly want me to be," she
answered.

"It 's about— about Miss Upton."

"About Imogen? Don't you call her Imogen
yet? You must."

"I will. I 've just begun"; and with this avowal
Sir Basil turned away his eyes for a moment, and
even in the moonlight showed his flush. "I had a
long talk with her this afternoon."

"Yes. I supposed that you had. You may be
perfectly frank with me," said Valerie, her eyes on
his averted face.

"She was most dreadfully cut up, you know.
She came rushing up to the pine woods — I was smok
ing there— rushing up as if she were running for
her life— crying,— exhausted,— in a dreadful state."

"Yes. I know."

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 301

"Yes, of course you do. What don't you know
and what don't you understand," said Sir Basil
gratefully, his eyes coming back to hers. "So I
need n't go over it all — what she feels about it.
I realize very well that you feel for her as much as
I do."

"Oh, yes, you must realize that," said Valerie,
a little faintly.

"She was in such a state that one simply had to
try to comfort her, — if one could, — and we have
come to be such friends; — so she told me every
thing."

"Yes. Of course."

"Well that 's just it. What I want to ask you
is — can't you, for her sake, quite apart from your
own feelings— give in about it?" So spoke Sir
Basil, sitting in the moonlight, the spark of his ci
gar waning as, in the long pause that followed, he
held it, forgotten, in an expectant, arrested hand.
Her voice had helped and followed him with such
gentleness, such understanding that, though the
pause grew, he hardly thought that it needed the
added, "I do beg it of you," that he brought out
presently to make her acquiescence more sure; and
his shock of disappointment was sharpened by sur
prise to a quick displeasure when, her eyes passing
from his face and resting for long on the shadowy
woods, she said in a deadened voice, a voice strangely
lacking in feeling:— "I can't."

He could n't conceal the disappointment nor,
quite, the displeasure. "You can't? Really you
can't?— Forgive me, but don't you think she 's a

302 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

right to have it written, her father's life, you know,
if she feels so deeply about it?"

"I can't. I will never give my consent," Valerie
repeated.

"But, she 's breaking her heart over it," Sir
Basil deeply protested ; and before the quality of the
protestation she paused again, as though to give
herself time to hide something.

"I know that it is hard for her," was all she
said at last.

Protestation gave way to wonder, deep and sad.
"And for her sake — for my sake, let me put it —
you can't let bygones be bygones?— You can't give
her her heart's desire? — My dear friend, it 's such a
little thing. "

"I know that. But it 's for his sake that I
can't," said Valerie.

Sir Basil, at this, was silent, for a long time. Per
plexity mingled with his displeasure, and the pain
of failure, the strangely complex pain.

She did not care for him enough; and she was
wrong, and she was fantastic in her wrongness. For
his sake? — the dead husband, whom, after all, she
had abandoned and made unhappy ?— Imogen's
words came crowding upon him like a host of warn
ing angel visages. She actually told him that this
cruel thwarting of her child was for the sake of the
child's father?

It was strange and pitiful that a woman so sweet,
so lovely, should so grotesquely deceive herself as
to her motives for refusing to see bare justice done.

"May I ask why for him?— I don't understand,"
he said.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 303

Valerie now turned her eyes once more on his
face. With his words, with the tone, courteous yet
cold, in which they were spoken, she recognized a
reached landmark. For a long time she had caught
glimpses of it, ominously glimmering ahead of her,
through the sunny mists of hope, across the wide
stretches of trust. And here it was at last, but so
suddenly, for all her presages, that she almost lost
her breath for a moment in looking at it and what
it marked. Here, unless she grasped, paths might
part. Here, unless she pleaded, something might
be slain. Here, above all, something might turn its
back on her for ever, unless she were disloyal to her
own strange trust.

A good many things had been happening to Valerie
of late, but this was really the worst, and as she
looked at the landmark it grew to be the headstone
of a grave, and she saw that under it might lie her
youth.

' ' I don 't believe that you could understand, ever, ' '
she said at last in an unaltered voice, a voice, to her
own consciousness, like the wrapping of a shroud
about her. ' ' It 's only I who could feel it, so deeply
as to go so far. All that I can say to you is this:
my husband was a mediocre man, and a pretentious
one. I once loved him. I was always sorry for
him. I must guard him now. I cannot have him
exposed. I cannot have his mediocrity and preten
tiousness displayed to the people there are in the
world who would see him as he was, and whose opin
ion counts."

She knew, as she said it, as she folded the shroud,
that he would not be one of those. Her husband's

304 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

pretentiousness and mediocrity would not be ap
parent to the ingenuous and uncomplex mind beside
her. She knew that mind too well and had watched
it, of late, receiving with wondering admiration from
her daughter's lips, echoes of her husband's fatui
ties. She loved him for his incapacity to see sad and
ugly and foolish facts as she saw them. She loved
his manliness and his childishness. As she had
guarded the other, once loved, man from revealment
she would have guarded this one from ironic and
complex visions. But the lack that endeared him to
her might lose him to her. He could never see as she
saw and her fidelity to her own light could in his
eyes be but perversity. Besides, she could guess at
the interpretations that loomed in his mind; could
guess at what Imogen had told him ; it hardly needed
his next words to let her know.

"But was he so mediocre, so pretentious?" he
suggested, with the touch of timidity that comes
from a deeper hostility than one can openly avow.—
"Are n't you a little over-critical—through being
disappointed in him— personally ? Can you be so
sure of your own verdict as all that ? Other people,
who loved him — who always loved him I mean — are
sure the other way round," said Sir Basil.

To prove herself faithful, not perverse, whom must
she show to him as unfaithful in very ardor for
Tightness? In the midst of all the wrenching of her
hidden passion came a pang of maternal pity. Imo
gen's figure, bereaved of her father, of her lover,
desolate, amazed, rose before her and, behind it, tho
hovering, retributory gaze of her husband.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 305

This, then, was what she must pay for having
failed, for having wrecked. The money that she
handed out must be her love, her deep love, for this
lover of her fading years, and she knew that she paid
the price, for everything— paid the price, above all,
for her right to her own complex fidelity, when she
said:

"I am quite sure of my own verdict. I take all
the responsibility. I think other people wrong.
And you must think me wrong, if it looks to you
like that."

"But, it 's almost impossible for me to think you
wrong, ' ' said Sir Basil, feeling that a chill far frost
ier than the seeming situation warranted had crept
upon them. "Even if you are— why we all are, of
course, most of the time, I suppose. It 's only — it 's
only that I can't see clear. That you should be so
sure of an opinion, a mere opinion, when it hurts
someone else, so abominably; — it 's there I don't
seem to s6e you, you know."

"Can't you trust me?" Valerie asked. It was
her last chance, her last throw of the dice. She
knew that her heart was suffocating her, with its
heavy throbbing, but to Sir Basil's ear her voice
was still the deadened, the unchanged voice. "Can't
you believe in my sincerity when I give you my
reasons? Can't you, knowing me as you do, for so
long, believe that I am more likely to be right, in my
judgment of my husband, than— other people?"

Her eyes, dark and deep in the moonlight, were
steadily upon him. And now, probed to the depths,

he, too, was conscious of a parting of the ways
20

306 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

It was a choice of loyalties, and he remembered
those other eyes, sunlit, limpid, uplifted, that lifted
him, too, with their heavenly, upward gaze. He
stammered ; he grew very red ; but he, too, was faith
ful to his own light.

"Of course I know, my dear friend, that you are
sincere. But, as to your being right;— in these
things, one can't help seeing crookedly, sometimes,
when personal dislike has entered into a, — a near
relationship. One really can hardly help it, can
one?— " he almost pleaded.

Valerie's eyes rested deeply and darkly upon him
and, as they rested, he felt, strangely and irresistibly,
that they let him go. Let him go to sink or to
soar — that depended on which vision were the truer.

He knew that after his flush he had become very
pale. His cigar had gone out ;— he looked at it with
a nervous gesture. The moonlight was cold and
Valerie had turned away her eyes. But as she sud
denly rose, he saw, glancing from his dismal survey
of the dead cigar, that she was smiling again. It
was a smile that healed even while it made things
hazy to him. Nothing was hazy to her, he was very
sure of that ; but she would make everything as easy
as possible to him — even the pain of finding her so
wrong, even the pain of seeing that she did n't care
enough, the complex pain of being set free to seize
the new happiness— he was surer of that than ever.

He, too, got up, grateful, troubled, but warm
once more.

The moonlight was bright and golden, and the
shadows of the vines that stirred against the sky

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 307

wavered all over her as she stood before him. So
strangely did the light and shade move upon her,
that it seemed as if she glided through the ripples
of some liquid, mysterious element, not air nor light
nor water, but a magical mingling of the three. He
had just time to feel, vaguely, for everything was
blurred, this sense of strangeness and of sweetness,
too, when she gave him her hand.

"Friends, as ever, all the same — are we not?''
she said.

Sir Basil, knowing that if he glided it was only
because she took him with her, grasped it tightly,
the warm, tangible comfort. "Well rather!" he
said with school-boy emphasis.

Be she as wrong as she would, dear creature of
light, of shade, of mystery, it was indeed "well
rather." Never had he known how much till now.

Holding the hand, he wondered, gazing at her, how
much such a friendship, new yet old, counted for.
In revealing it so fully, she had set wide the door,
she had set him free to claim his soul ; yet so wonder
fully did they glide that no gross thought of escape
touched him for a moment, so beautifully did she
smile that he seemed rather to be gaining something
than to be giving something up.

XXIII

MOGEN always looked back to her
moonlight walk with Jack as one of
the few occurrences in her life that, at
the time, she had not understood. She
understood well enough afterward,
with retrospective vexation for her so ludicrous,
yet, after all, so natural innocence. At the time
she had n't even seen that Jack had jockeyed her
out of a communing with Sir Basil. She had
actually thought that Jack might have some word
of penitence or exculpation to say to her after his
behavior that morning. As a matter of fact she
could easily have forgiven him had his lack of sym
pathy been for her instruments only and not rather
for her project. Really, except for the triumph
it had seemed to give to her mother, the humilia
tion that it had seemed, vicariously, to inflict upon
herself, she had n't been able to defend herself
from a queer sense of pleasure in witnessing the
ejection of the Pottses. With the tension that had
come into the scene they had been in the way; she,
as keenly as Jack, had felt the sense of unfitness,
though she had been willing to endure it, and as
keenly as Jack she had felt Mr. Potts as insuffer
ably presuming. She had been glad that his

308

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 309

presumption should wreak punishment upon her
mother, but glad, too, that when the weapon had
served its purpose, it should be removed.

So her feelings toward Jack, as he led her
down the woodland path, where, not so many
days ago— but how far off they seemed — she had
led Sir Basil, were not so bitter as they might
have been. Bitterness was in abeyance. She
waited to hear what he might have to say for
himself and about her — about this new disaster
that had befallen her, and with the thought of
the retribution that she held, almost, within her
grasp, came something of a softening to sadness
and regret over Jack. In spite of that glorious mo
ment of the pine woods, with its wide vistas into
the future, some torn fiber of her heart would go
on aching when she thought of Jack and his lost
love; and when he led her away among the woods,
thick with trembling lights and shadows, she really,
for a little while, expected to hear him say that,
sympathize as he might with her mother, reprobate
as he might her own attitude toward her, there
were needs in him deeper than sympathies or blame ;
she almost expected him to tell her that, above all,
he loved her and could n't get on without her.
Else why had he asked her to come and see the
moonlight in the woods ?

A vagueness hovered for her over her own
attitude in case of such an avowal, a vague
ness connected with the veil that still hung be
tween her unavowed lover and herself, and even
as she walked away with Jack she felt a mingled

310 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

pang of eagerness for what he might have to say
to her and of anxiety for what, more than his
petition on her behalf, Sir Basil might be drawn
into saying to her mother on the veranda. She
did n't crudely tell herself that she would not
quite abandon Jack until the veil were drawn aside
and triumph securely attained; she only saw her
self, as far as she saw herself at all, as pausing be
tween two choices, pausing to Aveigh which was
the greater of the appealing needs and wrhich the
deeper of the proffered loves. She knew that the
balance inclined to Sir Basil's side, but she saw her
self, for this evening, sadly listening, but withhold
ing, in its full definiteness, the sad rejection of
Jack 's tardy appeal.

With this background of interpretation it was,
therefore, with a growing perplexity that she heard
Jack, beside her, or a little before, so that he
might hold back the dewy branches from her way,
talk on persistently, fluently, cheerfully, in just
the same manner, with the same alert voice and
pleasant, though watchful, eye, that he had talked
at dinner. Her mother might have been walking
beside them for all the difference there was. Jack,
the shy, the abrupt, the often awkward, seemed in
fected with her mother's social skill. The moonlit
woods were as much a mere background for ma
neuvers as the candle-lit dinner-table had been.
Not a word of the morning's disaster; not a word of
sympathy or inquiry ; not a word of self-defence or
self-exposition ; not even a word of expostulation or
reproach.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 311

As for entreaty, tenderness, the drawing near once
more, the drop to loving need after the climax of
alienation, she saw, by degrees, how illusory had
been any such imagining; she saw at last, with a
sharpness that queerly chilled her blood, that Jack
was abdicating the lover's role more decisively than
even before. Verbal definiteness left hazes of possi
bility compared to this dreadfully competent reti
cence. It was more than evasion, more than reti
cence, more than abdication that she felt in Jack ; it
was a deep hostility, it was the steady burning of
that flame that she had seen in his eye that morning
when she had told her mother that she was cruel
and shallow and selfish. This was an enemy who
walked beside her and, after perplexity, after the
folly of soft imaginings, the folly of having allowed
her heart to yearn over him a little, and, perhaps,
over herself, indignation rushed upon her, and hu
miliation, and then the passionate longing for ven
geance.

He thought himself very cool and competent, this
skilful Jack, leading her down in the illumined, dewy
woods, talking on and on, talking— the fool— for so,
with a bitter smile, her inner commentary dubbed
him — of Manet, of Monet, of Whistler, of the decom
position of light, the vibration of color.

From the heat of fierce anger Imogen reached a
contemptuous coolness. She made no attempt to stay
his volubility ; she answered, quietly, accurately, with
chill interest, all he said. They might really have
met for the first time at dinner that night, were it
not that Jack 's competence was a little feverish, were

312 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

it not that her own courtesy was a little edged. But
the swing from tender sadness to perplexity, to fury,
to contempt, was so violent that not until they
turned to retrace their steps did a very pertinent
question begin to make itself felt. It made itself
felt with the sudden leap to fear of that underlying
anxiety as to what was happening on the veranda,
and the fear lit the question with a lurid, though, as
yet, not a revealing flicker. For why had he done
it? That was what she asked herself as they faced
the moonlight and saw the woods all dark on a back
ground of mystic gold. What fatuous complacency
had made him take so much trouble just to show her
how little he cared for what she might be feeling, for
what he had himself once felt?

Imogen pondered, striding before him with her
long, light step, urged now by the inner pressure of
fear as to the exchange that her absence had made
possible between her mother and Sir Basil. It had
been foolish of her to leave him for so long, exposed
and helpless. Instinctively her step hastened as
she went and, Jack following closely, they almost
ran at last, silent and breathing quickly. Imogen
had, indeed, the uncanny sensation of being pur
sued, tracked, kept in sight by her follower. From
the last thin screen of branches she emerged, finally,
into the grassy clearing.

There was a flicker of white on the veranda. In
the shadow of the creepers stood two figures, clasp
ing hands. Her mother and Sir Basil.

Fear beat suddenly, suffocatingly, in Imogen's
throat. A tide of humiliation, like the towering of

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 313

a gigantic wave above her head, seemed to rise and
encompass her round about. She had counted too
soon upon gladness, upon vengeance. Everything
was stripped from her, if— if Jack and her mother
had succeeded. With lightning-like rapidity her
mind grasped its suspicion. She looked back at
Jack. His eyes, too, were fixed on the veranda, and
suspicion was struck to certainty by what she read
in them. He was tense; he was white; he was tri
umphant. Too soon triumphant! In another mo
ment the imminence of her terror passed by. The
clasp was not that of a plighting. It was over; it
denoted some lesser compact, one that meant, per
haps, success for her almost forgotten hope. But in
Jack's eye she had read what was her danger.

Imogen paused but for a moment to draw the
breath of a mingled relief and realization. Her
knowledge was the only weapon left in her hand,
and strength, safety, the mere semblance of dignity,
lay in its concealment. If he guessed that Sir Basil
needed guarding, he should never guess that she did.
Already her headlong speed might have jeopardized
her secret.

"What a pretty setting for our elderly lovers,
is n't it?" she said.

That her voice should slightly tremble was only
natural; he must know that even from full uncon
sciousness such a speech must be for her a forced
and painful one.

Jack looked her full in the eye, as steadily as she
looked at him.

"Is n't it?" he said.

XXIV

I HE had seen through him and she con
tinued to see through him.

She had little opportunity for more
than this passive part on the next day,
a day of goings and comings, when the
Pottses went, and Rose, Mary, and Eddy, arrived.
He was guarding her mother's lover for her,
guarding him from the allurement of her own young
loveliness; that was the way Jack saw it. He was
very skilful, very competent, she had to own that as
she watched him ; but he was not quite so omniscient
as he imagined himself to be, for he did not know
that she saw. That was Imogen's one clue in those
two or three days of fear and confusion, days when,
actually, Jack did succeed in keeping her and Sir
Basil apart. And she must make no endeavor to
thwart his watchfulness ; she must yield with appar
ent unconsciousness to his combinations, combina
tions that always separated her and Sir Basil; she
must see him drive off with Sir Basil to meet the
new-comers ; must see him lead Sir Basil away with
himself and Eddy for a masculine smoke and talk;
must see him, after dinner, fix them all, irrevoca
bly, at bridge for the re-t of the evening,— and not

314

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 3J5

stir a finger; — for he did not know that she saw and
he did not know that she, as well as Sir Basil, needed
guarding. It was here that Imogen's intuition,
failed her, and that her blindness made Jack's task
the easier.

Imogen, in these days, had little time for self-
observation. She seemed living in some dark, fierce
region of her nature, unknown to her till now,
where she found only fear and fury and the deep
determination not to be defeated and bereft. So
supremely real were will and instinct, that, seen
from their dominion, conscience, reason, all the
spiritual tests she had lived by, looked like far, pale
clouds floating over some somber, burning land
scape, where, among flames and darkness, she was
running for her life. Reason, conscience, were stilt
with her, but turned to the task of self-preservation.
"He is mine. I know it. I felt it. They shall not
take him from me. It is my right, my duty, to keep
him, for he is all that I have left in life." The
last veil descended upon her soul when, her frosty
young nature fired by the fierceness of her resolu
tion, she felt herself to be passionately in love with
Sir Basil.

On the third day, the third day of her vita
nuova — so she named it — Jack had organized a pic
nic. They were to drive ten miles to a mountain
lake among pine woods, and, thrilling all through
with rage, Imogen saw Sir Basil safely manoeuvered
into the carriage with her mother, Rose, and Eddy,
while she was assigned to Jack, Miss Bocock, and
Mary.

316 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

She heard herself talk sweetly and fluently during
the long, sunny, breezy drive, heard Jack answering
and assenting with a fluency, a sweetness as apt.
Mary was very silent, but Miss Bocock, no doubt,
found nothing amiss in the tone of their inter
change. Arrived at the beautiful spot fixed on, sun
light drifting over glades of fern, the shadowy woods
encircling a lake of blue and silver, she could say,
with just the right emphasis of helpless admira
tion: "Wonderful— wonderful;"— could quote a
line of Wordsworth, while her eye passed over the
figure of Sir Basil, talking to Rose at a little dis
tance, and over Jack's figure, near at hand.

Jack and Eddy had driven, and the moment came
when they were occupied with their horses. She
joined the others, and, presently, she was able to draw
Sir Basil a little aside, and then still a little further,
until, among the rosy aisles, she had him to herself.
Stooping to gather a tiny cone she said to him in a
low voice:— "Well?— well?— What did she say?"

Sir Basil, too, lowered his voice:— "I 've wanted
a chance to tell you about it. My dear child, I 'm so
very sorry, but I 've been a failure. She won 't hear
of it. You '11 have to give it up."

"She utterly refused?" How far this matter of
her father was from her thoughts— as far as the pale
clouds above the fierce, dark landscape.

"Utterly."

"You asked for your sake, as well as for mine?"

"I asked for both our sakes. "

"And," still stooping, her face hidden from him,
she pierced to find the significance of that moonlight
hand-clasp,— "and— she made you agree with her?"

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 317

"Agree with her? — I was most dreadfully disap
pointed, and I had to tell her so.— How could I
agree with her?"

"She might have made you."

"She did n't make me;— did n't try to, I 'm
bound to say. ' '

"But," — her voice breathed up to him now with
a new gentleness, — a gentleness that, he well
might think, covered heart-brokenness, — "but— you
have n't quarreled with her, — on my account? I
could n 't bear her to lose things, on my account. She
thinks of you as a friend — values your friendship; —
I know it, — I am sure of it, — even though she would
not do this for you. Some hatreds are too deep to
yield to any appeal; but it is friendship I know; —
and I love her — in spite of everything."

She had murmured on and on, parting the ferns
with her delicate hand, finding here and there a lit
tle cone, and as Sir Basil looked down at the golden
hair, the pure line of the cheek, a great wave of
thanksgiving for the surety of his freedom rose in
him.

"Dear, sweet child," he said, "this is just what
I would expect of you. But don't let that thought
trouble you for one moment. I do think her wrong,
but we are perhaps better friends than ever. You
and I will always care for her"— Sir Basil's voice
faltered a little as, to himself, the significance of
these last words was borne in upon him, and Imogen,
hearing the falter, rose, feeling that she must see as
well as hear.

And as she faced him they heard Jack's cheery
call:

318 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"Sir Basil— I say, Sir Basil!— You are wanted.
You must help with the hampers. ' '

Imogen controlled every least sign of exaspera
tion; it was the easier, since she had gained some
thing from this snatched interview. Her mother
had in no way harmed her in Sir Basil's eyes, and
this avowal of friendship might include an abdica
tion of nearer claims. And so she walked back be
side him— telling him that her cones were for her
little cripples. "You are always thinking about
some one else's happiness," said Sir Basil— with a
tranquillity less feigned than it had been of late.
Nothing was lost, nothing really desperate yet. But,
during the rest of the afternoon, while they made
tea, spread viands, sat about on the moss and rocks
laughing, talking, eating, the sense of risk did not
leave her. Nothing was lost, yet, but it was just pos
sible that what she had, in her folly, expected to hap
pen the other night to her and Jack, might really
happen to Sir Basil and her mother ; in the extremity
of alienation they might find the depths of need.
He thought her wrong, but he also thought her
charming.

Sitting a little above them all, on a higher rock,
watching them while seeming not to watch, she felt
that her sense of peril strangely isolated her from the
thoughtless group. She could guess at nothing from
her mother 's face. She had not spoken with her mother
since the day of the disaster — and of the dawn. It
was probable that, like her own sad benignity, her
mother's placidity was nothing but a veil, but she
could not believe that it veiled a sense of peril.
Under her white straw hat, with broad black ribbons

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 319

tying beneath the chin, it was very pale— but that
was usual of late— and very worn, too, as it should
be; but it was more full of charm than it had any
right to be. Her mother— oh! despite pallor and
fading— was a woman to be loved; and that she be
lieved herself a woman loved, Imogen, with a deep
stirring of indignation and antagonism, suspected.
Yes, she counted upon Sir Basil, of that Imogen
was sure, but what she could n't make out was
whether her mother guessed that her confidence was
threatened. Did she at all see where Sir Basil's
heart had turned, as Jack had seen? Was her
mother, too, capable of Jack's maneuvers?

From her mother she looked at Sir Basil, looked
with eyes marvelously serene. He lounged delight
fully. His clothes were delightfully right; they
seemed as much a part of his personality as the cones
were of the pines, the ferns of the long glades.
Rightness— exquisite, unconscious Tightness, was
what he expressed. Not the Tightness of warfare
and effort that Imogen believed in and stood for, but
a Tightness that had come to him as a gift, not as a
conquest, just as the cones had come to the pine-
trees. The way he tilted his Panama hat over his
eyes so that only his chin and crisply twisted mus
tache were unshadowed, the way in which he held
his cigarette in a hand so brown that the gold of
the seal ring upon it looked pale, even the way in
which he wagged, now and then, his foot in its
shapely tan shoe,— were all as delightful as his Ikn-
pid smile up at her mother, as his voice, deep, de
cisive, and limpid, too.

Imogen was not aware of these appreciations in

320 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

herself as she watched him with that serene covert-
ness, not at all aware that her senses were lending
her a hand in her struggle for possession and ascen
dency, and giving to her hold on the new and threat
ened belonging a peculiar tenacity. But she did tell
herself, again and again, with pride and pain, that
this at last was love, a love that justified anything,
and that cast all lesser things aside. And, with this
thought of rejection, Imogen found her eyes turning
to Jack. She looked at Jack as serenely as she had at
Sir Basil, and at him she could trust herself to look
more fixedly.

Jack's Tightnesses were not a bit like those of na
ture. He was hesitant, unfinished, beside Sir Basil.
His voice was meager, his form was meager, his very
glance lacked the full, untroubled assurance of the
other's. As for his clothes, with a sly little pleasure
Imogen noted, point by point, how they just missed
easy perfection. Very certainly this man who had
failed her was a trophy not comparable to the man
who now cared. She told herself that very often,
emphasizing the unfavorable contrast. For, strangely
enough, it was now, at the full distance of her sepa
ration from Jack, an irrevocable separation, that
she needed the support of such emphasis. In Jack's
absent stare at the lake, his nervous features com
posed to momentary unconsciousness^ she could but
feel a quality that, helplessly, she must appre
ciate. There was in the young man's face a purity,
a bravery, a capacity of subtle spiritual choice that
made it, essentially, one of the most civilized she
had ever known. Sir Basil's brain, if it came to

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 321

comparison, lacked one or two convolutions that
Jack's undoubtedly possessed.

And, appreciating the lost lover, as, through her
own sharpness of intelligence she was bound to do,
poor Imogen knew again the twisted pang of divided
desire. Was it the higher that she had lost, or the
higher that she so strangely struggled for? Her
eyes, turning again on Sir Basil, stayed themselves
on the assurances of his charm, his ease, his right-
nesses; but the worst bitterness of all lurked under
these consolations; for, though one was lost, the
other was not securely gained.

Imogen, that night, made another dash for the
open, only, again, to be foiled. Her mother and
Miss Bocock were safely on the veranda in the moon
light, the others safely talking in the drawing-room ;
Sir Basil, only, was not to be seen, and Imogen pres
ently detected the spark of his cigar wandering
among the flower-borders. She could venture on
boldness, though she skirted about the house to join
him. What if Jack did see them together ? It was
only natural that, if she were unconscious, she should
now and then seek out her paternal friend. But
hardly had she emerged from the shadow of the
house, hardly had Sir Basil become aware of her
approach, when, with laughter and chattering out
cries the whole intolerable horde was upon her. It
was Rose who voiced the associated proposal, a
moonlight ramble; it was Rose who seized upon Sir
Basil with her hateful air of indifferent yet assured
coquetry; but Imogen guessed that she was a tool,

even if an ignorant one, in the hands of Jack.
21

322 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Miss Bocock and her mother had not joined them
and, in a last desperate hope, Imogen said,—
"Mama, too, and Miss Bocock,— we must n't leave
them. Sir Basil, won't you go and fetch them?"
And then, Sir Basil detached from Rose, on his way,
she murmured, — "I must see that she does n't forget
her shawl," and darted after him. Once more get
him to herself and, in the obscurity of the woods,
they might elude the others yet. But, as they ap
proached the veranda, she found that Jack was be
side them.

Neither Valerie nor Miss Bocock cared to join the
expedition ; and Valerie, cryptically, for her
daughter's understanding, said: "Do you really
want more scenery, Sir Basil? You and Imogen
had much better keep us company here. We have
earned a lazy evening."

"Oh, no, but Rose has claimed Sir Basil as her
cavalier," Jack, astonishingly, cut in. "It 's all her
idea, so that she could have a talk with him. Do
you come, too," Jack urged. "It 's only a little
walk and the moonlight is wonderful among the
woods. ' '

Mrs. Upton's eye rested fixedly upon him for a
moment. Imogen saw that, but could not know
whether her mother shared her own astonishment
for Jack's development or whether the look were of
the nature of an interchange. She shook her head,
however.

"No, thanks, I am too tired. Be sure and show
Sir Basil the view from the rustic seat, Imogen.
And, oh, Imogen, do you and Sir Basil go to the

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 323

pantry and ask Selma for some cakes. You will
like something to eat. ' '

"I '11 come, too," said Jack cheerfully. "I must
get my stick. ' '

And thus it was that Sir Basil remained stand
ing beside Mrs. Upton, while the young couple, in
absolute silence, accomplished their mission.

Imogen only wondered, as they went, side by side,
swiftly, round to the pantry, if Jack did not hear
the deep, indignant breaths she vainly tried to mas
ter. The rest of the evening repeated the indigni
ties of the afternoon. She was watched, guarded,
baffled. Proudly she relinquished every attempt to
checkmate; and her mother was not there; for the
moment there was no anxiety on that score. But
the sense of deep breathing did not leave her. What
would n't Jack do? She was quite sure that he
would lie, if, technically, he had not lied already.
The stick had been in the hall near the pantry. If it
had n't;— well, with her consciousness of whistling
speed, of a neck-to-neck race, she really would not
have had time for a pause of wonder and condemna
tion.

XXV

HE woke next morning to that fierce
consciousness of a race. And the goal
must now be near, defeat or victory
imminent.

It was early and she dressed quickly.
She could n't boldly rap at Sir Basil's door and call
him to join her in the garden for a dewy walk be
fore breakfast, for Jack 's was the room next his ;
but, outside, as she drifted back and forth over the
lawn, in full view of his window, she sang to her
self, so that he could hear, sang sweetly, loudly,
sadly, a strain of Wagner. It happened, indeed, to
be the Pilgrim's March from Tannhauser that she
fixed upon for her aubade. Jack would never sus
pect such singing, and Sir Basil must surely seize
its opportunity. But he did not appear. She sur
mised that he was not yet up and that it might be
wiser to wait for him in the dining-room.

As she crossed the veranda she heard voices
around the corner, a snatch of talk from two other
early risers sitting outside the drawing-room win
dows. Mary and Rose; she placed them, as she
paused.

"But Jack himself often talks in just that way,"

324

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 325

Mary was saying, pained it was evident, and puzzled,
too, by some imputation that she had n't been able
to deny.

"Yes, dear old Jack," Rose rejoined; "he does
talk in a very tiresome way sometimes; so do you,
Mary my darling;— you are all tarred with the same
solemn brush ; but, you see, it 's just that ; one may
talk like a prig and yet not be one. Jack, behind
the big words, means them all, is them all, really.
Whereas Imogen;— why she 's little— little— little.
Even Jack has found that out at last."

"Rose! Rose! Don't— It 's not true. I can't
believe it! I won't believe it!" broke from Mary.
Her chair was pushed back impetuously, and Imogen
darted into the dining-room and from there into the
hall to find herself, at last, face to face with Sir
Basil.

"I hoped I 'd find you. I heard you singing in
the garden. What is that thing,— Gounod, is n't it?
Do let 's have a turn in the garden."

But even as he said it, holding her hand, the fatal
chink of the approaching breakfast tray told them
that the opportunity had come too late. Rose and
Mary already were greeting them, Jack and Miss
Bocock called morning wishes from above.

Valerie was a late riser; and Imogen, behind the
tea-pot and coffee, was always conscious of offering
a crisp and charming contrast to lax self-indulgence.
But this morning, as they all hemmed her in, fixed
her in her rightful place, her cheeks irrepressibly
burned with vexation and disappointment. The
overheard insolence, too, had been like a sudden slap.

326 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

She mastered herself sufficiently to kiss Mary 's cheek
and to take Rose's hand with a gaze of pure uncon
sciousness, a gaze that should have been as a coal of
fire laid upon her venomous head.

But Rose showed no symptom of scorching. She
trailed to her place, in a morning-gown all lace and
ribbons, smiling nonchalantly at Jack and saucily at
Sir Basil, with whom she had established relations
of chaffing coquetry; she told Imogen to remember
that she liked her coffee half-and-half with a lot of
cream and three lumps of sugar. She looked as
guiltless as poor Mary looked guilty.

"Eddy 's late as usual, I suppose," she said.

"He inherits laziness from mama," Imogen
smiled, putting in four lumps, a trivial vengeance
she could not resist.

* ' Some of her charms he has inherited, it 's true. ' '
Rose, in the absence of her worshiped hostess gave
herself extreme license in guileless prods and thrusts.
"I only wish he had inherited more. Here you are,
Eddy, after all, falsifying my hopes of you. We
are talking about your hereditary good points,
Eddy;— in what others, except morning laziness, do
you resemble your mother ? ' '

"Well, I hate strings of milk in my coffee," said
Eddy, bending over his sister to put a perfunctory
kiss upon her brow, "and as I observe one in that
cup I hope it 's not intended for me. Imogen, why
won't you use the strainer?"

With admirable patience, as if humoring two
spoiled children, Imogen filled another cup with
greater care.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 327

"Mama feels just as I do about strings in cof
fee," said Eddy, bearing away his cup. "We are
both of us very highly organized."

"You must n't be over-sensitive, you know,"
said Imogen, "else you will unfit yourself for life.
There are so many strings in one's coffee in life."

"The fit avoid them," said Eddy, "as I do."

"You inherit that, too, from mama," said Imo
gen, "the avoidance of difficulties. Do try some of
our pop-overs, Miss Bocock; it 's a national dish."

"What are you going to do this morning, Imo
gen?" Jack asked, and she felt that his eye braved
hers. "It 's your Girls' Club morning, is n't it?
That will do beautifully for you, Miss Bocock. I 've
been telling Miss Bocock about it; she is very much
interested."

"Very much indeed. I am on the committee of
such a club in England," said Miss Bocock; "I
should like to go over it with you."

Imogen smiled assent, while inwardly she mut
tered "Snake!" Her morning, already, was done
for. unless, indeed, she could annex Sir Basil as a
third to the party and, with him, evade Miss Bocock
for a few brief moments. But brief moments could
do nothing for them. They needed long sunny or
moonlit solitudes.

"We must be alone together, under the stars, for
our souls to see," Imogen said to herself, while she
poured the coffee, while she met Jack's eye, while,
beneath this highest thought, the lesser comment of
"Snake!" made itself heard.

"What 's become of that interesting girl who had

328 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

the rival club, Imogen?" Rose asked. "The one
you squashed. ' '

"We make her very welcome when she comes to
ours. ' ' Imogen did not descend to self -exculpation.
She spoke gently and gravely, casting only a glance
at Sir Basil, as if calling him to witness her pained
magnanimity.

"It would be fun, you know, to help her to start
a new one," said Rose;— "something rebellious and
anarchic. Will you help me if I do, Eddy ? Come,
let 's sow discord in Imogen's Eden, like a couple of
serpents."

Reptilian analogies seemed uppermost this morn
ing; Imogen felt their fitness while, smiling on, she
answered: "I don't think that mere rebellion— not
only against Eden but against the Tree of Know
ledge as well— would carry you far, Rose. Your
membership would be of three — Mattie and the two
serpents."

Sir Basil laughed out at the retort.

"You evidently don't know the club and all
those delightful young women," he said to Rose.

"Oh, yes, indeed I do. Every one sees Imogen's
clubs. I don't think them delightful. Women in
crowds are always horrid. We are only tolerable in
isolation."

"You hand over to us, then, "—it was Jack who
spoke, and with his usual impatience when bending
to Rose's folly. — "all the civic virtues, all the virtues
of fraternity?"

"With pleasure ; they are becoming to nobody, for
that matter. But I 'm quite sure that men are
brothers. Women never are sisters, however, unless,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 329

sometimes, we are sisters to you," Rose added de
murely, at which Sir Basil gave a loud laugh.

Imogen, though incensed, was willing that on this
low ground of silly flippancy Rose should make her
little triumphs. She kept her smile. "I don't
think that those of us who are capable of another
sisterhood will agree with you," and her smile
turned on Mary another coal of fire, for she sus
pected Mary of apostasy. "I don't think that the
women whose aim in life is — well — to make brothers
of men in Rose's sense, can understand sisterhood at
all, as, for instance, Mary and I do."

"Oh, you and Mary!"— Rose tapped her egg
shell and salted her egg. "That 's not sisterhood; —
that 's prophetess and proselyte. You 're an an
archist to the bone, Imogen, like the rest of us; —
you could n't bear to share anything — It 's like
children playing games: — If I can't be the driver,
I won't play horses."

' ' Oh, Rose ! ' ' came in distressed tones from Mary ;
but Imogen did not flinch from her serenity.

Outside on the veranda, where they all wandered
after breakfast, her moment came at last. Jack
had walked away with Mary; Miss Bocock, with a
newspaper, stood in the shade at a little distance.
Rose and Eddy were wandering among the flowers.

Imogen knew, as she found herself alone with Sir
Basil, that the impulse that rose in her was the
crude one of simply snatching. She controlled its
demonstration so that only a certain breathlessness
was in her voice, a certain brilliancy in her eye, as
she said to him, rapidly:—

"He will never let you see me! Never!'*

330 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

" He ? Who ? —What do you mean ? " Sir Basil,
startled, stared at her.

' ' Jack ! Jack ! Have n 't you noticed ? ' '

"Oh, I see. Yes, I see." His glance became il
luminated. In a voice as low as her own he asked:
"What does it mean?— I never can get a word with
you. He 's always there. He 's very devoted to
you, I know; but, I supposed that— well, that his
chance was over."

His hesitation, the appeal of his glance, were
lightning-flashes of assurance for Imogen, opening
her path for her.

"It is over; — it is over; — but it 's false that he
is devoted to me," she whispered. "He hates me.
He is my enemy."

"Oh, I say!" gasped Sir Basil.

"And since he failed to win me — Don't you see —
It 's through sheer spite— sheer hatred."

Her brilliant eyes were on him and a further
"Oh!" came from Sir Basil as he received this long
ray of illumination. And it was so dazzling, al
though Imogen, after her speech, had cast down her
eyes, revealing nothing more, that he murmured
hastily :—" Can't I see you, Imogen, alone;— can't
you arrange it in some way?"

Imogen 's eyes were still cast down, while, the pur
pose that was like a possession, once attained, her
thoughts rushed in, accused, exculpated, a wild con
fusion that, in another moment had built for her
self-respect the shelter of a theory that, really, quite
solidly sustained the statement so astounding to her
self when it had risen to her lips. Hatred, spite;

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 331

yes, these were motives, too, in Jack's treachery;
she had n't spoken falsely, though it had been with
the blindness of the overmastering purpose. And
her dignity was untarnished in Sir Basil's eyes, for,
she had seen it at last, her path was open; she had
only to enter it.

Her heart seemed to flutter in her throat as she
said on the lowest, most incisive note : "Yes, — I, too,
want to see you, Sir Basil. I am so lonely; — you
are the only one who cares, who understands, who
is near me. There must be real truth between us.
This morning — he has prevented that. But to
night, after we have all gone up-stairs, come out
again, by the little door at the back, and meet me —
meet me — " her voice wavered a little, "at the rustic
bench, up in the woods, where we went last night.
There we can talk." And catching suddenly at all
the nobility, so threatened in her own eyes, remem
bering her love for him, her great love, and his need,
his great need, of her, she smiled deeply, proudly
at him and said :

"We will see each other, at last, and each other's
truth, under God's stars."

XXVI

had drawn Mary aside, around the
sunny veranda, and, out of ear-shot of
everybody, a curious intentness in his
demeanor, he asked her to run up to
Mrs. Upton's room and ask her if she
would n't take a drive with him that morning.
Since the Uptons' impoverishment their little stable
was, perforce, empty; and it was Jack who ordered
the buggy from the village and treated the company
in turn to daily drives.

Mary departed on her errand, hearing Jack tele
phoning to the livery-stable as she went upstairs.

She had to own to herself that the charm had
grown on her, and the fact of her increasing fond
ness for Imogen 's mother made the clearer to her all
the new, vague pain in regard to Imogen. Imogen,
to Mary's delicate perception of moral atmosphere,
was different; she had felt it from the moment of
her arrival. No one had as yet enlightened her as
to the Potts 's catastrophe, but even by its interpre
tation she would have found the change hard to
understand. Perhaps it was merely that she,
Mary, was selfish and felt herself to be of less im
portance to Imogen. Mary was always conscious
of relief when she could fix responsibility upon her-

332

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 333

self, and she was adjusting all sorts of burdens on
her conscience as she knocked at Mrs. Upton's door.

The post had just arrived, and Valerie, standing
near her dressing-table, was reading her letters as
Mary came in. Mary had never so helplessly felt
the sense of charm as this morning.

She wore a long white dressing-gown of frilled
lawn, tied with black ribbons at throat and wrists.
Her abundant chestnut hair, delicately veined with
white, was braided into two broad plaits that hung
below her waist, and her face, curiously childlike so
seen, was framed in the banded masses. Mary could
suddenly see what she had looked like as a little
girl. So moved was she by the charm that, Puri
tan as she was, she found herself involuntarily say
ing: — ''Oh, Mrs. Upton, what beautiful hair you
have."

"It is nice, is n't it?" said Valerie, looking more
than ever like a child, a pleased child; "I love my
hair."

Mary had taken one braid and was crunching it
softly, like spun silk, in her hand. She could n't
help laughing out at the happy acceptance of her ad
miring speech ; the charm was about her ; she under
stood; it was n't vanity, but something flower-like.

"You have heaps, too," said Valerie.

"Oh, but it 's sand-colored. And I do it so hor
ribly. It is so heavy and pulls back so."

' ' I know ; that 's the difficulty with heaps of hair.
But I had a very clever maid, and she taught me
how to manage it. Sand-color is a lovely color as a
background to the face, you know."

334 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Valerie rarely made personal remarks and rarely
paid compliments. She had none of the winning al
lurements of the siren ; Mary had realized that and
was now realizing that genuine interest, even if reti
cent, may be the most fragrant of compliments.

' ' I wish you would let me show you how to do it, ' '
Valerie added.

Mary blushed. There had always been to her, in
her ruthless hair-dressing, an element of severe can
dor, the recognition of charmlessness, a sort of hom
age paid to wholesome if bitter fact. Mrs. Upton
was not, in her flower-like satisfaction, one bit vain ;
but Mary suspected herself of feeling a real thrill
of tempted vanity. The form of the temptation
was, however, too sweet to be rejected, and Mrs. Up
ton's hair was so simply done, too, though, she sus
pected, done with a guileful simplicity. It would n't
look vain to do it like that ; but, on the other hand, it
would probably take three times as long to do ; there
was always the question of one's right to employ
precious moments in personal adornment. "How
kind of you," she murmured. "I am so stupid
though. Could I really learn? And would n't it
take up a good deal of my time every morning?"

Valerie smiled. "Well, it 's a nice way of spend
ing one's time, don't you think?"

This was, somehow, quite unanswerable, and Mary
had never thought of it in that light. She sat down
before Valerie's pretty, tipped mirror and looked
with some excitement at the rows of glittering toilet
utensils set out before her. She was sure that Mrs.
Upton found it nice to spend a great deal of time
before her mirror.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 335

"It is so kind of you," she repeated. "And it
will be so interesting to see how you do it. And,
oh, I am forgetting the thing I came for— how
stupid, how wrong of me. It 's a message from
Jack. He wants to know if you will drive with
him."

"And what are all the plans for to-day?" Mrs.
Upton asked irrelevantly, unpinning the clustered
knobs at the back of Mary's head and softly shak
ing out the stringently twisted locks as she un
coiled them.

"It is so kind of you;— but ought n't I to take
Jack his answer first?"

"The answer will wait. He has his letters to
see to now. What are they all doing ? ' '

"Well, let me see; Rose is in the hammock and
Eddy is talking to her. Imogen is going to take
Miss Bocock to see her club. ' '

"Oh, it is Imogen's club day, is it? She asked
Miss Bocock?"

"Miss Bocock asked her, or, rather, Jack told her
that he had been telling Miss Bocock about it; it
was Jack who asked. He knew, of course, that she
would be interested in it; — a big, fine person like
Miss Bocock would be bound to be."

"Um," Valerie seemed vaguely to consider as she
passed the comb down the long tresses. "I don't
think that I can let Imogen carry off Miss Bocock ;—
Miss Bocock can go to the club another day ; I want
to do some gardening with her this morning; she 's
a very clever gardener, did you know?— So I shall
be selfish. Imogen can take Sir Basil; he likes
walks."

336 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Mrs. Upton was now brushing, and very dexter
ously; but Mary, glancing at her with a little anx
iety for the avowed selfishness, fancied that she was
not thinking much about the hair. Mary could not
quite interpret the change she felt in the lovely
face. Something hard, something controlled was
there.

"But Jack?"— she questioned.

"Well, Jack can take you on the drive. You
and he have seen very little of each other since
you 've come ; such old friends as you are, too. ' '

"Yes, we are," said Mary, gazing abstractedly
at her own face, now, in the mirror, and forgetting
both her own transformation and the face that bent
above her. A familiar cloud of pain gathered within
her and, suddenly, she found herself bursting out
with:— "Oh, Mrs. Upton— I am so unhappy about
Jack!"

Valerie, in the mirror, gave her a keen, quick
glance. "I am, too, Mary," she said.

Mary, at this, turned in her chair to look up at
her:— "You see, you feel it, too!"

"That he is unhappy? Yes, I see and feel it."

"And you care;— I am sure that you care."

"I care very much. I love Jack very much."

Mary seized her hand and tears filled her eyes.
"Oh, you are a dear! — One must love him when one
really knows him, must n't one?— Mrs. Upton, I 've
known Jack all my life and he is simply one of the
noblest, deepest, realest people in the .whole world."

"I am sure of that."

"Well, then, can't you help him?" Mary cried.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 337

"How can I help him?— In what way?" Valerie
asked, her grave smile fading.

"With Imogen. It 's that, you see, their aliena
tion, that 's breaking his heart.

' ' Of course you 've seen it all more clearly than I
have," Mary went on, her hair about her face, her
hand clasping Valerie's;— "Of course you under
stand it, and everything that has happened to them.
I love Imogen, too— please don't doubt that;— but,
but, I can't but feel that it 's her mistake, her blind
ness that has been the cause. She could n't ac
cept it, you see, that he should— stand for a new
thing, and be loyal to the old thing at the same
time."

Valerie, now, had sunken into a chair near Mary's,
and one hand was still in Mary's hand, and in the
other she still held a tress of Mary's hair. She
looked down at this tress while she said: — "But
Imogen was right, quite right. He could n't stand
for the new thing and be loyal to the old."

Mary's eyes widened: "You mean, — Mrs. Up
ton?—"

"Just what you do. That I am the cause."

She raised her eyes to Mary's and the girl became
scarlet.

"Oh,— you do see it all," she breathed.

"All, all, Mary. To Imogen I stand, I must
stand, for the wrong; to Jack— though he can't
think of me very well as 'standing' for anything,
I 'm not altogether in that category. So that his
championship of me judges him in Imogen's eyes.

Imogen has had a great deal to bear. Have you

22

338 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

heard of the last thing? She has not told you?
I have refused my consent to her having a biography
of her father written. She had set her heart on it."

"Oh, I had n't heard anything. You would n't
consent? Oh, poor Imogen!"

"It is, poor Imogen. In this, too, she has found
no sympathy in Jack. All his sympathy is with
me. It has been the end, for both of them. And
it is inevitable, Mary. ' '

"Oh, Mrs. Upton, what can I say — what can I
think?— I don't seem to be able to see who is right
and who is wrong ! ' ' Mary covered the confusion
of her thoughts by burying her face in her hands.

"No; one can't see. That 's what one finds out."

"Of course, I have always thought Mr. Upton a
very wonderful person," Mary murmured from be
hind her hands, her Puritan instinct warning her
that now, when it gave her such pain, was the time
above all others for a "testifying," a "bearing wit
ness. "—"But I know that Jack never felt about that
as I did. Of course I, too, think that the biography
ought to be written."

Valerie was silent, and her silence, Mary felt, was
definitive.

She would n't explain herself; she would n't seek
self -exculpation; and while, with all her humility,
Mary felt that as a little stinging, she felt it, also, as
something of a relief. Mrs. Upton, no doubt, was
indifferent as to her opinion of her Tightness and her
wrongness, and Mrs. Upton — there was the comfort
of it,— was a person whom one must put on one side
when it came to judgments. She did n't seem to

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 339

belong to any of the usual categories. One did n't
want to judge her. One was thankful for the haze
she made about herself and her motives. That Jack
understood her was, Mary felt sure, the result of
some peculiar perspicacity of Jack's, for she did n't
believe that Mrs. Upton had- ever explained or ex
culpated herself to Jack, either. It even dawned on
her that his perspicacity perhaps consisted mainly in
the sense of trust that she herself was experiencing.
She trusted Mrs. Upton, were she right, or were she
wrong, and there was an end of it. With that final
^realization she uncovered her eyes and met her
hostess's eyes again, eyes so soft, so clear, but with,
in them, a look of suffering. Childlike, her hair
folding behind her cheek and neck, she was faded,
touched with age ; Mary had never seen it so clearly.
Somehow it made her even sorrier than the suffering
she recognized.

"Oh, but it 's been hard for you, too," she ex
claimed, shyly but irrepressibly, "everything, all of
it. Just let me say that. ' '

Valerie had blushed her infrequent, vivid blush.
She rose and came behind Mary's chair again, gath
ering up the abandoned tresses. But before she be
gan to comb and coil she said, ' ' Thanks, ' ' leaning for
ward and, very lightly, kissing the girl's forehead.

After that there was silence between them while
the work of hair-dressing went on. Valerie did not
speak again until, softly forming the contour of the
transfigured head, she said, looking at Mary's re
flection with an air of quiet triumph; — "Now, is not
that charming?"

340 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"Charming; perfectly charming," Mary replied,
vaguely ; the tears were near her eyes.

"You must come again, to-morrow, and do it un
der my supervision. It only needs this, now."
She thrust two heavy tortoise-shell pins into the
coils on either side of Mary's head.

"Those beautiful pins! I am afraid I shall lose
them!"

"But they are yours,— mementoes of the new era
in hair-dressing. I have several of them. There,
you are quite as I would have you,— as far as your
head goes."

"Not as far as the rest of me goes, I 'm afraid,"
said Mary, laughing in spite of herself, and lured
from sadness.

"I wish you 'd let me make the rest of you to
match, ' ' said Valerie. "I 've always loved dressing
people up. I loved dressing my dolls when I was a
child. That stiff shirt does n 't go with your head. ' '

"No, it does n't. I really don't see," said Mary
tentatively, "why one should n't regard dressing as
a form of art; I mean, of course, as long as one
keeps it in its proper place, as it were."

' ' To get it in its proper place is to dress well, don 't
you think. I found such a pretty lawn dress of
mine in a trunkful of things put away here; it 's
a little too juvenile for me, now, and, besides, I 'm
in mourning. May I put you into it?"

"But I should feel so odd, so frivolous. I 'm
such a staid, solemn person."

"But the dress is staid, too, — a dear little auster
ity of a dress;— it 's just as much you as that way

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 341

of doing your hair is. Don't imagine that I would
commit such a solecism as to dress you frivolously.
Look; will you put this on at once, — to please me?"

She had drawn the delicate thing, all falls and
plaitings of palest blue, from a closet, and, shaking
it out, looked up with quite serious eyes of suppli
cation. It was impossible not to yield. Laughing,
frightened, charmed, Mary allowed Mrs. Upton to
dress her, and then surveyed herself in the long
mirror with astonishment. She could n't but own
that it was herself, though such a transfigured self.
She did n't feel out of place, though she felt new
and strange.

"Now, Mary, go down to them and see to it that
they all do as I say," Valerie insisted. "Imogen is
to take Sir Basil to the club ; — Miss Bocock is to gar
den with me — tell her particularly that I count upon
her. Jack is to take you for a drive. And, Mary,"
she put her hand for a moment on the girl's
shoulder, grave for all her recovered lightness; —
you are not to talk of sad things to Jack. You must
help me about Jack. You must cheer him;— make
him forget. You must talk of all the things you
used to talk of before — before either I or Imogen
came."

They were all on the veranda when Mary went
down ; all, that is, but Rose and Eddy. Sir Basil
and Miss Bocock were .deep in letters. Imogen,
seated on a step, the sunlight playing over her flut
tering black, endured— it was evident that enjoy
ment made no part of her feeling— a vivid and em
phatic account from Jack of some recent political

342 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

occurrence. He was even reading, here and there,
bits from the newspaper he held, and Mary fancied
that there was an unnatural excitement in his voice,
an unusual eagerness in his eye, with neither of
which had he in the least infected Imogen.

On seeing Mary appear he dropped the newspaper
and joined her in the hall, drawing her from there
into the little library. ' ' Well ?— Well ?— " he ques
tioned keenly.

He had no eyes for her transformation, Mary
noted that, although Imogen, in the instant of her
appearance, had fixed grave and astonished eyes
upon her. She repeated her message.

"Well, do you know," said Jack, "we can't obey
her. I 'm so sorry; — I should have liked the drive
with you, Mary, of all things ; but it turns out that
I can't take anybody this morning. I Ve some let
ters, just come, that must be answered by return.
But, Mary, see here," his voice dropped and his
keenness became more acute;— "help me about it.
See that she goes. She needs it."

"Needs it?"

' ' Don 't you see that she 's worn out ? ' '

"Jack, only this morning, I 've begun to suspect
it;— what is the matter?"

"Everything. Everything is the matter. So,
she must n't be allowed to take all the drudgery on
her hands. Miss Bocock may go to the club with
Imogen; she 's just ready to go, she wants to go;—
and Mrs. Upton must have the drive with Sir Basil.
He 'd far rather drive with her than walk with Imo*
gen," said Jack brazenly.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 343

"I suppose so, they are such great friends; —
only; — drudgery?— She likes Miss Bocock. She
likes gardening,"— Mary's breath was almost taken
away by his te»se decisiveness.

"She likes Sir Basil better"; Jack said it in the
freest manner, a manner that left untouched any
deeper knowledge that they might both be in pos
session of. ' ' Imogen likes him better, too. It 's for
that, so that Imogen may have the best of it, that
she 's taking Miss Bocock off Imogen's hands;— you
see, I see that you do. So, you just stay here and
keep still about your counter-demands, while I man
age it."

"But Jack,— you bewilder me!— I ought to give
my message. I hate managing."

"I '11 see that your message is given. ' '

"But how can you?— Jack— what are you plan
ning?"

He was going and, with almost an impatience of
her Puritan scruples, he paused at the door to re
ply :— "Don't bother. I 'm all right. I won't man
age it. I '11 simply have it so."

Half an hour later Valerie came down-stairs wear
ing her white hat with its black ribbons and draw
ing on her gardening gloves. And in the large,
cool hall, holding his serviceable letters, Jack
awaited her.

"I hope you won't mind," he announced, but in
the easiest tones; "we can't obey you this morning.
Miss Bocock 's gone off to the club with Imogen, and
Sir Basil is going to take you for a drive."

Valerie, standing on the last step of the stair, a

344 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

little above him, paused in the act of adjusting her
glove, to stare at him. Easy as his tone was he
could n't hide from her that he wore a mask.

"Was Mary too late to give my message?"

"Yes;— that is, no, not exactly; but the club had
been arranged and Miss Bocock was eager about it
and knew you would n't mind, especially as Sir
Basil set his heart on the drive with you, when he
heard that I could n't go."

"That you could n't go?— but you sent Mary to
ask me."

"I had to waive my claim,— I Ve just had these
letters"; he held them up. "Very important; they
must be answered at once ; it will take all my morn
ing, and, of course, when Sir Basil heard that, he
jumped at his chance."

Valerie was still on the step above him, fully il
luminated, and, as, with that careful ease, he urged
Sir Basil's eagerness upon her, he saw— with what a
throb of the heart, for her, for himself— that her
deep flush rose.

Oh, she loved him. She could n't conceal it, not
from the eyes that watched her now. And was she
glad of an unasked-for help, or did her pride sus
pect help and resent it? Above all did she know
how in need of help she was?

He had n 't been able to prevent his eyes from turn
ing from the blush ; they avowed, he feared, the con
sciousness that he would hide ; but, after a little mo
ment, in the same voice of determined, though cau
tious penetration, Valerie questioned: "Is Imogen
just gone?"

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 345

"She has been gone these fifteen minutes," said
Jack, striving to conceal triumph.

"And Mary?"

"Mary?"

"Yes; where is Mary? Is she left out of all your
combinations ? ' '

She did probe, then, though her voice was so mild,
the voice, only, of the slightly severe, slightly dis
pleased hostess who finds her looms entangled.

"Mary always has a lot to do."

"Sir Basil shall take Mary," said Valerie cheer
fully, as though she picked up the thread and found
a way out of the silly chaos of his making.

And at this crisis, this check from the goddess
who would n't be served, Jack's new skill rose to an
almost sinister height. Without a flaw in their ap
parent candor, his eyes met hers while he said:—
"Please don't upset my little personal combination.
It 's very selfish of me, I know;— but I wanted to
keep Mary for myself this morning. I 've seen so lit
tle of her of late, and I need her to talk over my let
ters with; they 're about things we are both inter
ested in."

Valerie looked fixedly at him while he made this
statement, and he could n't tell what her look meant.
But, evidently, she yielded to his counter-stratagem,
feeling it, no doubt, unavoidable, for the buggy just
then drew up before the door, and the figure of Sir
Basil appeared above.

' ' I am in luck ! ' ' said Sir Basil. Excitement as
well as eagerness was visible in him. Valerie did
not look up at him, though she smiled vaguely, com-

346 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

ing down from her step and selecting a parasol on
her way to the door. Jack was beside her, and he
saw that the flush still stayed. He seemed to see,
too, that she was excited and eager, but, more than
all, that she was frightened. Yet she kept, for him,
her quiet voice.

Before Sir Basil joined them she had time to
say:— "You are rather mysterious, Jack. If you
have deep-laid plans, I would rather you paid me
the compliment of showing me the deepest one at
once. I am not being nasty to you," she smiled
faintly. ' ' Find Mary at once, you must have wasted
a lot of time already in getting to those letters. ' '

Jack stood in the doorway while they drove off.
Valerie, though now very pale, in the shadow of her
hat, showed all her gay tranquillity, and she was
very lovely. Sir Basil must see that. He must
see that, and all the other things, that, perhaps, he
had forgotten for a foolish moment.

Jack felt himself, this morning, in a category
where he had never thought it possible that he should
find himself. It was difficult to avoid the convic
tion that he had, simply, lied two or three times in
order to send Mrs. Upton and Sir Basil off together
in their long, swaying, sunny solitude. Jack had
never imagined it possible that he should lie. But.
observing, as he was forced to, the blot on his neat,
clean conscience, he found himself considering it
without a qualm. His only qualm was for its suc
cess. The drive would justify him. He almost
swore it to himself, as Valerie's parasol disappeared
among the trees. The drive would justify him, and

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 347

reinstate Sir Basil. Unless Sir Basil were a fool,
what he had done was well done.

Yet, when they had disappeared, it was with the
saddest drop to anxious, to gnawing uncertainty,
that Jack turned back into the house. An echo of the
fear that he had felt in Valerie seemed to float back
to him. It was as if, in some strange way, he had
handed her over to pain rather than to joy, to sacri
fice rather than to attainment.

XXVII

ACK'S morning was not a happy one.
It was bad enough to have told so many
fibs, or, at all events, to have invented
so many opportune truths, and it was
worse to have to go on inventing more
them to Mary, now that his dexterities had
linked him to her.

Mary looked, as was only too natural, much sur
prised, when he told her that his letters required
her help. She looked still more so when she found
how inadequate were their contents to account for
such a claim.

Indeed there was, apparently, but one letter upon1
which her advice could be of the least significance,
and after she had given him all the information she
had to give in regard to the charity for which it ap
pealed, there was really nothing more for them to do.
"But— the letters that required the immediate
answers?" she asked.

Jack's excited, plausible manner had dropped
from him. Mary felt it difficult to be severe when
his look of dejection was piercing her heart ; still,
she felt that she owed it to him as well as to herself,
she must see a little more clearly into how he had
" had things so."

Ml

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 349

He replied, his eye neither braving nor evading
hers, that he had already answered them ; and Mary,
after a little pause, in which she studied her friend's
face, said: — "I don't understand you this morning,
Jack."

"I 'm afraid you '11 understand me less when I
make you a confession. I did n't give your mes
sage this morning, Mary."

"Did n't give Mrs. Upton's message, to Miss Bo-
cock, to Sir Basil ? ' '

"No," said Jack, but with more mildness and sad
ness than compunction; — "I want to be straight
with you, at all events. So I 'd rather tell you.
All I did was to say to Sir Basil that I found I
could n't take Mrs. Upton for the drive I 'd prom
ised, so that if he wanted to take my place, he was
welcome to the buggy. He wanted to, of course.
That went without saying."

' ' Why, Jack Pennington ! ' '

"Miss Bocock, luckily, was on the other side of
the veranda, so that I had only to go round to her
afterward and tell her that Mrs. Upton had sug
gested their gardening, but that since she was going
to drive with Sir Basil she could go off to the club,
at once, too, with Imogen. ' '

"But, Jack!— what did you mean by it?"— Mary,
quite aghast, stared at her Machiavellian friend.

"Why, that Sir Basil should take her. That 's
all I meant from the beginning, when I proposed
going myself. Do forgive me, you dear old brick.
You see, I 'm so awfully set on her not being done
out of thiugs."

350 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"Done out of things?"

"Oh, little things, if you like, young things.
She 's young, and she ought to have them. Say
you forgive me."

"Of course, Jack dear, I forgive you, though I
don't understand you. But that 's not the point.
Everything seems so queer, so twisted; every one
seems different. And to find you not straight is
worst of all."

"I promise you, it 's my last sin," said Jack.

Mary, though shaking her bewildered head, had
to smile a little, and, the smile encouraging him to
lightness, he remarked on her changed aspect.

"So do forgive and forget. I had to confess,
when I 'd not been true to you. Really, my nature
is n't warped. What an extremely becoming dress
that is Mary;— and what have you done to your
hair?"

"It 's she," said Mary, flushing with pleasure.

"Mrs. Upton?"

"Yes, she did my hair and gave me the dress.
She was so sweet and dear."

Jack lightly touched a plaited ruffle of the wide
sleeve, and Mary felt that he had never less thought
of her than when he so touched her dress. She put
aside the deep little pang that gave her to say : "It 's
true, Jack, she ought to have young things, just
because they are going from her; one feels that:
She ought n't to be standing back, and giving up
things, yet. I see a little what you mean. 7s n't
it pretty?" Still, with an absent hand, he lightly
touched, here and there, a ruffle of her sleeve. "But
it 's like her. I hardly feel myself in it."

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 351

"You 've never so looked yourself," said Jack.
"That 's what she does, brings out people's real
selves. ' '

Mrs. Upton and Sir Basil did not come Hack to
lunch, and Imogen's face was somber indeed as she
faced her guests at the table. Jack, vigilant and
pitiless, guessed at the turmoil of her soul.

She asked him, with an icy sweetness, how his let
ters had prospered. "Did you get them all off?"

Jack said that he had, and Mary, casting a waver
ing glance at him, saw that if he intended to sin no
more, he showed, at all events, a sinful guilelessness
of demeanor. She herself began to blush so help
lessly and so furiously that Imogen's attention was
drawn to her. Imogen, also, was vigilant.

"And what have you been doing, Mary dear?"
she asked.

"I— oh"— poor Mary looked the sinful one;—
"I— helped Jack a little."

"Helped Jack? — Oh, yes, he had heaps of letters,
had n 't he ? What were they all about, Mary ? ' '

"Oh, charities."

"Charities?— What charities? How many chari
ties?— I 'm interested in that, you know — I 'm
rather hurt that you did n't ask my advice, too,"
and Imogen smiled her ominous smile. "What were
the charities?"

Mary, crimson to the brow, her eyes on her plate,
now did her duty.

"There was only one."

"One— and that of such consequence that Jack
had to give up his drive because of it?— what an in
teresting letter."

352 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

' ' There were other letters, of course, ' ' Jack, in aid
of his innocent accomplice, struck in. "None that
would have particularly interested you, Imogen.
I only needed advice about the one, a local Boston
affair."

"There were others, Mary," said Imogen, laugh
ing a little. "You need n't look so guilty on Jack's
account." Mary gave her a wide, startled stare.

"You see, Mary," said Rose, after lunch in the
drawing-room, "saints can sting."

"What was the matter?" Mary murmured, her
head still seemed to buzz, as though from a violent
box on the ear. "I never heard Imogen speak like
that. To hurt one!"

"I fancy she 'd been getting thwarted in some
way," said Rose comfortably; "saints do sting,
then, sometimes, the first thing that happens to be
at hand. How Jack and she hate each other!"

Mary went away to her room and cried.

Meanwhile Jack wandered about in the woods un
til, quite late in the afternoon, he saw from the rus
tic bench, where, finally, he had cast himself, the re
turning buggy climbing up through the lower wood
lands.

He felt that his heart throbbed heavily as he
watched it, just catching glimpses, among the trees,
of the white bubble of Valerie's parasol slanting
against the sun. Yet there was a dullness in his ex
citement. It was over, at all events. He was sure
that the last die was cast. And his own trivial and
somewhat indecorous part, of shifter of scenes and
puller of strings, was, he felt sure, a thing put by for-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 353

ever. He could help her no longer. And in a sort
of apathy, he sat out there in the sunny green,
hardly thinking, hardly wondering, conscious only
of a hope that had become a mere physical sense of
oppression and of an underlying sadness that had
become, almost, a physical sense of pain.

He had just consulted his watch and, seeing it
wanted but ten minutes to tea-time, had got up and
was moving away, when a sudden rustle near him,
a pause, a quick, evasive footstep, warned him of
some presence as anxious for solitude as himself.

He stood still for a moment, uncertain as to his
own best means of retreat, but his stillness misled,
for, in another moment, Valerie appeared before
him from among the branches of a narrow side path.

She had come up to the woods directly; he saw
that, for she still wore her hat ; she had come to be
alone and to weep ; and, as she saw Jack, her pale
face was convulsed, with the effort to control her
weeping, into a strange rigor of pain and confu
sion.

"Oh"— he stammered. "Forgive me. I did n't
know you were here. ' ' He was turning to flee, as if
from a sacrilege, when she recalled him.

"Don't— without me. I must go back, too," she
said.

She stepped on to the broader path and joined him,
and he guessed that she tested, on him, her power to
face the others. But, after they had gone a few
steps together, she stopped suddenly and put her
hands before her face, standing quite still.

And Jack understood that she was helpless and

23

354 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

that he must say nothing. She stood so for a long
moment, not trusting herself to move or speak.
Then, uncovering her face, she showed him strange
eyes from which the tears had been crushed back.

"And— I can do nothing?— ' he said at last, on
the lowest breath, as they walked on.

"Nothing, dear Jack."

"When you are suffering like that!"

"I have no right to such suffering. I must hid*
it. Help me to hide it, Jack. Do I look fairly de
cent?" She turned her face to him, with, he
thought, the most valorous smile he had ever seen.

Only a thin screen of leaves was between them and
the open.

"You look— beautiful, " said Jack. She smi'ed
on, as though that satisfied her, and he added, ' ' Can
I know nothing?— See nothing?"

"I think already," said Valerie, "that you see
more than I ever meant any one to see."

"I?— I see nothing, now," he almost moaned.

"You shall. I '11 talk to you later."

"You will? If only you knew how I cared!"

"I do, dear Jack."

"Not how much, not how much. You can't know
that. It almost gives me my right, you know, to
see. When will you talk to me ? "

"Some time to-night, when we can have a quiet
moment. I '11 tell you about the things that have
happened— nothing to make you sad, I hope. And
I '11 ask you some questions, too, Jack, about your
very odd behavior!"

Really she was wonderful ; it was almost her own

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 355

gaiety, flickering like pale sunlight upon her face,
that she had regained, and, as they went together
over the lawn to where the tea-table was laid in
the shade, he saw that she could face them all. No
one would know. And her last words had given
him heart, had lifted, a little, the heavy weight of
foreboding. Perhaps, perhaps, her grief was n't
for herself. "Oh, but I can't be candid till you
are," he said, the new hope shining in his eyes.

"Oh, yes, you will be," she returned. "You
won't ask me to be candid. You '11 give and not
ask to get back. I know you, Jack."

No one could guess; Sir Basil least of all. That
was apparent to Jack as he watched them all sitting
at tea under the apple-trees. Sir Basil had never
looked so radiant, so innocent of any connection with
suffering. He exclaimed over the beauties of their
long drive. They had crossed hill and dale; they
had lost their way ; they had had lunch at a village
hotel, an amusing lunch, ending with ice-cream and
pie, and, from the undiminished reflection of his
contentment on Valerie's features, Jack knew that
any faintest hint of the pale, stricken anguish of the
woodlands had never for an instant hovered during
the drive. This was the face that Sir Basil had
seen for all the happy, sunny, picnic day, this face of
gay tranquillity.

Sir Basil and Mrs. Upton, indeed, expressed what
gaiety there was among the group. Mary, in her
blue lawn, looked very dreary. Rose and Eddy
were ill-tempered, their day, plainly, having ended
in a quarrel. As for Imogen, Jack had felt her

35G A FOUNTAIN SEALED

heavy eye rest upon him and her mother as they
came together over the lawn, and felt it rest upon
her mother and Sir Basil steadily and somberly,
while they sat about the tea-table. The long drive,
Sir Basil's radiance, her mother's serenity, how
must they look to Imogen? Jack could conjecture,
though knowing, for his own bitter mystification,
that what they looked like was perhaps not what
they meant. Imogen must be truly at bay, and he
felt a cruel satisfaction in the thought of her hidden,
her gnawing anxiety. He was aware of every ring
of falsity in her placid voice and of every flash of
fierceness under the steeled calmness of her eye. He
noticed, too, for the rest of the day, that, whatever
Imogen's desperation, she made no effort to see Sir
Basil alone. Almost ostentatiously she went away
to her room after tea, saying that she had had bad
news of an invalid protege and must write to her.
She paused, as she went, to lean over Mary, a ca
ressing hand upon her shoulder, and to speak to her
in a low tone. Mary grew very red, stammered,
and said nothing.

"Miss Upton overworks, I think," observed Miss
Bocock. "I 've thought that she seemed over
strained all day."

Mary had risen too, and as she wandered away
into the flower garden, Jack followed her.

"See here," he said, "has Imogen been hurting
you again?"

"No, Jack, oh DO ;— I 'm sure she does n't mean to
hurt."

"What did she say to you just now?"

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 357

"Well, Jack, you did bring it upon yourself, and
upon me"-

"What was it?"

' ' She said that she could n 't bear to see her white
flower — that 's I, you know," — Mary blushed even
deeper in repeating the metaphor — "used for un
worthy ends. She meant, of course, I see that,—
she meant that what she said at lunch was for you
and not for me. I 'm sure that Imogen means to be
kind— always."

"I believe she does."

" I 'm glad that you feel that, too, Jack. It is so
horrible to see oneself as — oh, really disloyal some
times. ' '

"You need never feel that, Mary."

"Oh, but I do. And now, when everything,
every one, seems turning against Imogen ! And she
has seemed different;— yet for two years she has
been a revelation of everything noble to me."

"You only saw her in noble circumstances."

"Oh, Jack," Mary's eyes were full of tears as she
looked at him now, "that 's the worst of all; that
you have come to speak of her like that. ' '

XXVIII

YEN Valerie could n't dispel the en
compassing cloud of gloom at dinner.
One could n't do much in such a fog
but drift with it. And Jack saw that
she was fit for no more decisive action.

Imogen, pale, and almost altogether silent, said
that she was very tired, and went up-stairs early.
Rose and Eddy, in a shaded corner of the drawing-
room, engaged in a long altercation. The others
talked, in desultory fashion, till bedtime. No one
seemed fit for more than drifting.

It was hardly eleven when Jack was left alone
with Mrs. Upton.

"You are tired, too," he said to her; "dreadfully
tired. I must n 't ask for our talk. "

"I should like a little stroll in the moonlight."
Valerie, at the open window, was looking out. "In
a night or two it will be too late for us to see. We '11
have our walk and our talk, Jack."

She rang for her white chnddah, told the maid to
put out the lamps, and that she and Mr. Pennington
would shut the house when they came in. From the
darkened house they stepped into the warm, pale
night. They went in silence over the lawn and,
with no sense of choice, took the mossy path that led

358

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 359

to the rustic bench where they had met that after
noon.

It was not until they were lost in the obscurity of
the woods that Valerie said, very quietly : ' ' Do you
remember our talk, Jack, on that evening in New
York, after the tableaux ? ' '

He had followed along the path just behind her;
but now he came to her side so that he could see her
shadowy face. "Yes; — the evening in which we
saw that Imogen and Sir Basil were going to be
friends. ' '

"And the evening," said Valerie, "when you
showed me plainly, at last, that because I seemed
gold to you, Imogen 's blue had turned to green. ' '

"Yes; — I remember."

"It has faded further and further away, her blue,
has n't it?"

"Yes," he confessed.

"So that you are hardly friends, Jack?"

He paused foi a moment, and then completed his
confession: — "We are not friends."

Valerie stood still, breathing as if with a little dif
ficulty after the gradual ascent. The tall trees
about them were dark and full of mystery on the
pale mysterious sky. Through the branches they
could see the glint of the moon's diminished disk.

' ' That is terrible, you know, ' ' said Valerie, after
they had stood in silence for some moments.

"I know it."

"For both of you."

"Worse for me, because I cared more, really cared
more. ' '

360 A FOUNTAIN SEA1TED

"No, worse for her, for it is you who have judged
and rejected her."

"She thinks that it is she who has judged and re
jected me."

' ' She tries to think it ; she does not always suc
ceed. It has been bitter, it has been cruel for her."

"Oh, yes, bitter and cruel," he assented.

"Don't try to minimize her pain, Jack."

"You feel that I can't care, much?"

"It is horrible for me to feel it. Think of her
when I came, so secure, so calm, so surrounded by
love and appreciation. And now" - Valerie
walked on, as if urged to motion by the controlled
force of her own insistence. Was it an appeal to
him that Imogen, dispossessed of the new love, might
find again the old love opening to her? He clung
to the hope, though with a sickening suspicion of
its folly.

"By my coming, I have robbed her of every
thing," Valerie was saying, walking swiftly up the
path and breathing as if with that slight difficulty—
the sound of her breaths affected him with an almost
intolerable sense of expectancy. "She is n't se
cure;— she is n't calm. She is warped;— her faiths
are warped. Her friends are changed to her. She
has lost you. It 's as if I had shattered her life."

"Everything that was n't real you have shat
tered. ' '

The rustic bench was reached and they paused
there, though with no eyes for the shaft of mystic
distance that opened before them. Jack's eyes were
on her and he was conscious of a rising insistence in
himself that matched and opposed her own.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 361

"But you must be sorry for her pain," said Va
lerie, and now, with eyes almost stern in their de
mand, she gazed at him; — "you must be sorry that
she has had to lose so much. And you would be
glad, would you not, to think that real things, a new
life, were to come to her ? ' '

He understood; even before the words, his fear,
his presage, leaped forward to this crashing together
of all his hopes. And it seemed to him that a flame
passed through him, shriveling in its ardent wrath
all trite reticences and decorums.

' ' No ; no, I should not be glad, ' ' he answered.
His voice was violent ; the eyes he fixed on her were
violent. His words struck Imogen out of his life
for ever.

"Why are you so cruel?" she faltered.

"I am cruel for you. I know what you want to
do. You are going to give her your life."

Quick as a flash she answered— it was like a rapier
parrying his stroke: — "Give? — what have I to do
with it, if it comes to her ? ' '

' ' Everything ! Everything ! " he cried.

"Nothing. You are mistaken."

"Ah.— you could keep it, you could keep it — if
you tried." And now his eyes pleaded— pleaded
with her, for her own life's sake, to keep what was
hers. "You have only to show her to him, as you
did to me."

"You think— I could do that!— to my child!"—
Through the darkness her white face looked a wild
reproach at him.

He seized her hands:— "It 's to do her no wrong!
—It 's only to be true, consciously, to him, as you

362 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

were true, unconsciously, to me. It 's only, not to
let her rob you— not to let her rob him."

"Jack," she breathed heavily, "these are things
that cannot be said. ' '

"They must — they must — now, between us. I
have my right. I 've cared enough— to do anything,
so that she 'should not rob you ! ' ' Jack groaned.

"She has not robbed me. It left me;— it went to
her ; — I saw it all. Even if I had been base enough,
even if I had tried to keep it by showing her to
him — as you say so horribly, — even then I should
not have kept it. He would not have seen. Don't
you understand;— he is not that sort of man. She
will always be blue to him, and I will always be
gold — though perhaps, now, a little tarnished.
That's what is so beautiful in him— and so stupid.
He does n 't see colors, as you and I do, Jack. That 's
what makes me sure that this is the happiest of for
tunes for them both."

He had held her hands, gazing at her downcast
face, its strength speaking from the shadow, its pain
hidden from him, and now, before her resolution and
her gentleness, he bent his head upon the hands he
held. "Oh, but you, you, you!— It 's you whose
life is shattered!" broke from him with a sob.

For a long while she stood silent above him, her
hands enfolding his, as though she comforted his
grief. He found himself at length kissing the gen
tle hands, with tears, and then, caressing his bent
head with a light touch, she said: "Don't you see
that the time has come for me to accept shatterings
as in the order of things, dear Jack?— My mistake

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 363

has been to believe that life can begin over again.
It can't. One uses it up— merely by waiting. I've
been an incurable girl till now;— and now, I 've
crashed from girlhood to middle-age in a week !
It 's been a crash, of course; the sort of crash one
never mends of ; but after to-day, after you sent me
off with him, Jack, and I allowed myself, in spite of
all my dread, my pride, my relinquishment, just one
flicker of girlish hope,— after all this, I think that
I must put on caps to show that I am really old at
last."

He lifted his head and looked at her. Her face
was lovely, with the silver disk of the moon above it
and, about it, the mystery and sadness of the tran
quil woods. So lovely, so young, with almost the
trembling touch of a tender mockery, like the tremb
ling of moonlit water, upon it. And all that he
found to say at last was: — "What a fool he is."

She really smiled then, though tears sprang to her
eyes with her comprehension of all that the help
less, boy'sh words struggled to subdue.

"Thanks for that, dear Jack, — and for all the
other mistakes," she said.

There seemed nothing more to say, no questions to
ask, or to answer. He must accept from her that
her plight was irrevocable. It was as if he had seen
a great stone rolled over the quivering, springing,
shining fountain, sealing it, stilling it for ever.
And, for his part, her word covered all. His "mis
takes" needed no further revealing.

They had turned and, in silence, were moving
down the path again, when they heard, suddenly,

364 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

the sound of light, swift footsteps approaching them.
They paused, exchanging a glance of wonder; and
Jack thought that he saw fear in Valerie's eyes.
The day, already, had held overmuch of endurance
for her, and it was not yet ended. In another mo
ment, tall and illumined, Imogen appeared before
them in the path.

Jack knew, in thinking it over afterward, that
Imogen at her most baleful had been Imogen at her
most beautiful. She had looked, as she emerged
from shadow into light, like a virgin saint bent on
some wild errand through the night, an errand
brought to a proud pause, in which was no fear and
no hesitancy, as her path was crossed by the spirits
of an evil world. That was really just what she
looked like, standing there before them, bathed in
light, her eyes pr'ofound and stern, her hair crowning
her with a glory of transmuted gold, her head up
lifted with a high, unfaltering purpose. That the
shock of finding them there before her was great,
one saw at once ; and one could gage the strength of
her purpose from her instantaneous surmounting of
the shock.

And it was strange, in looking back, to remember
how the time of colorless light and colorless
shadow had seemed to divest them all of daily con
ventions and daily seemings. They might have been
three disembodied souls met there in the moon
lit woods and speaking the direct, unimpeded lan
guage of souls, for whom all concealments are use
less.

"Oh— it is you," was what Imogen said; much

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 365

as the virgin saint might have greeted the familiar
demons who opposed her quest. You, meant both
of them. She put them together into one category
of evil, saw them as one in their enmity to her and
to good. And she seemed to accept them as very
much what a saint might expect to find on such a
nocturnal errand.

Involuntarily Valerie had fallen back, and she had
put her hand on Jack's shoulder in confusion more
than in fear. Yet, feeling a menace in the white,
shining presence, her voice faltered as she asked:
"Imogen, what are you doing here?"

And it was at this point that Imogen reached,
really, her own culmination. Whatever shame,
whatever hesitation, whatever impulsion to deceive
when deception was so easy, she may have felt; to
lie, when a lie would be so easily convincing, she re
jected and triumphed over. Jack knew from her
uplifted look that the moment would count with her
always as one of her great ones, one of the moments
in which— as she had used to say to him sometimes
in the Jays that were gone forever — one knew that
one had "beat down Satan under one's feet."

"You have no right to ask me that," she said,
"but I choose to answer you. I have come here to
meet Sir Basil."

"Meet him?" It was in pure bewilderment that
Valerie questioned, helplessly, without reproach.

"Meet him. Yes. What have you to say to it ?"

"But why meet him?— Why now?" The wonder
on Valerie's face had broken to almost merriment.
"Did he. ask you to?— Really, really, he ought n't to.

366 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Really, my child, I can't have you meeting Sir Basil
in the woods at midnight. ' '

"You can't have me meeting him in the woods at
midnight?" Imogen repeated, an ominous cadence,
holding her head high and taking long breaths.
"You say that, dare say it, when you well know
that I can meet him nowhere else and in no other
way. It was 7 who asked him to meet me here and
it is here, confronted with you, if you so choose ; it is
here, before you and under God's stars, that I shall
know the truth from him. I am not ashamed ; I
am proud to say it;— I love him. And though you
scheme, and stoop and strive to take him from me —
you, with Jack to help you— Jack to lie for you— as
he did this morning, — I know, I know in my heart
and soul that he loves me, that he is mine."

"Jack!— Jack!" Valerie cried. She caught him
back, for he started forward to seize, to gag her
daughter ; ' ' Jack— remember, remember !— She
does n 't understand ! ' '

' ' Oh, he may strike me if he wills. ' ' Imogen had
stood quite still, not flinching.

"I don't want to strike you— you— you idiot!"—
Jack was gasping. "I want to force you to your
knees, before your mother— who loves you— as no
one else who knows you will ever love you ! ' ' And,
helplessly, his old words, so trite, so inadequate,
came back to him. "You self-centered, you self-
righteous, you cold-hearted girl ! ' '

Valerie still held his arm with both hands, leaning
upon him.

"Imogen." she said, speaking quickly, "you

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 367

need n't meet Sir Basil in this way;— there is noth
ing to prevent you from seeing him where and when
you will. You are right in believing that he loves
you. He asked me this morning for your hand.
And I gave him my consent. ' '

From a virgin saint Imogen, as if with the wave
of a wand, saw herself turned into a rather foolish
genie, so transformed and then, ever so swiftly, run
into a bottle; — it was surely the graceful seal firmly
affixed thereto when she heard these words of con
formity to the traditions of dignified betrothal. And
for once in her life, so bottled and so sealed, she
looked, as if through the magic crystal of her
mother's words, absolutely, helplessly foolish. It
is difficult for a genie in a bottle to look contrite or
stricken with anything deeper than astonishment ; nor
is it practicable in such a situation to fall upon one's
knees, — if a genie were to feel such an impulse of
self-abasement. It was perhaps a comfort to all
concerned, including a new-comer, that Imogen
should be reduced to the silence of sheer stupefac
tion; und as Sir Basil appeared among them it was
not at him, after her first wide glance, that she
looked, but, still as if through the crystal bottle, at
her mother, and the look was, at all events, a con
fession of utter inadequacy to deal with the situa
tion in which she found herself.

It was Valerie, once more, who steered them all
past the giddy whirlpool. Jack, beside her, his
heart and brain turning in dizzy circles, marveled
at her steadiness of eye, her clearness of voice. He
would have liked to lean against a tree and get his

368 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

breath; but this delicate creature, rising from her
rack, could move forward to her place beside the
helm, and smile !

"Sir Basil," she said, and she put out her hand
to him so mildly that Sir Basil may well have thought
his rather uncomfortable rendezvous redeemed into
happiest convention, "here we all are waiting for
you, and here we are going to leave you, you and
Imogen, to take a walk and to say some of all the
things you will have to say to each other. Give me
your hand, Imogen. There, dear friend, I think
that it is yours, and I trust her life to you with my
blessing. Now take your walk. I will wait for
you, as late as you like, in the drawing-room."

So was the bottled genie released, so did it re
sume once more the figure of a girl, hardly humbled,
yet, it must be granted, deeply confused. In perfect
silence Imogen walked away beside her suitor, and it
may be said that she never told him of the little
episode that had preceded his arrival. Jack and
Valerie went slowly on toward the house. Now that
she had grasped the helm through the whirlpool he
almost expected that she would fall upon the deck.
But, silently, she walked beside him, not taking his
arm, wrapped closely in her shawl, and, once more
inside the dark drawing-room, she proceeded to
light the candles on the mantel-piece, saying that she
would wait there until the others came in, smiling
very faintly as she added:— "That everything may
be done properly and in order." Jack walked up
and down the room, his hands deeply thrust into the
pockets of his dining-jacket.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 369

"As for you, you had better go to bed," Valerie
went on after a moment. She had placed the can
dles on a table, taken a chair near them and chosen
a review. She turned the pages while she spoke.

At this, he, too, being disposed of, he stopped be
fore her. ' ' And you wanted me to be glad ! ' '

Her eyes on the unseen print, she turned her
pages, and now that they were out of the woods and
surrounded by walls and furniture and everyday
symbols, he saw that the pressure of his presence
was heavier, and that she blushed a deep, weary
blush. But she was able and willing quite to dis
pose of him. "I want you to be glad," she an
swered.

"For her!" — For that creature! — his words im
plied.

"It was natural, what she thought," said Valerie
after a moment, though not looking up.

"Natural!— To suspect you!"

"Of what you wanted me to do?" Valerie asked.
"Yes, it was quite natural, I think, and partly be
cause of your maneuvers, my poor Jack. I under
stand it all now. But the cause you espoused was
already a doomed one, you see."

"Oh!" he almost groaned. "You doomed it!
Don't you feel any pity for him I'1

Valerie continued to look at her page, silently, for
a moment, and it was now indeed as though his ques
tion found some reverberating echo in herself. But,
in the silent moment, she thought it out swiftly and
surely, grasping old clues.

"No, Jack," she said, and she was giving herself,

24

370 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

as well as him, the final answer, "I don't pity him.
He will never see Imogen baffled, warped, at bay, —
as we have. He will always see her crowned, suc
cessful, radiant. She will count tremendously over
there, far more than I ever would, because she 's so
different, because she cares such a lot. And Imogen
must count to be radiant. She will help him in all
sorts of ways, give him a new life; she will help
everybody. Do you remember what Eddy said of
her, that if it were n't for people of the Imogen type
the cripples would die off like anything?— That was
true. She is one of the people who make the wheels
of the world go round. And it 's a revival for a
man like Sir Basil to live with such a person. With
me he would have faded back into the onlooker at
life; with Imogen he will live. And then, above
all, quite above all, he is in love with her. I think
that he fell in love with her at first sight, as Anti
gone, at her loveliest, except for to-night; to-night
was her very loveliest— because it was so real;— she
would have claimed him from me — before me — if he
had come then ; and her belief in herself, did n 't you
see, Jack, how it illumined her?— And then, Jack,
and this I 'm afraid you are forgetting, Imogen is
a good girl, a very good girl. I can trust him to
her, you know. Her object in life will be to love
him in the most magnificent way possible. His
happiness will be as much of an end to her as her
own."

It was, perhaps, the culminating symptom of his
initiation, of his transformation, when Jack, who
had considered her while she spoke, standing per-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 371

fectly still, his hands in his pockets, his head bent,
his eyes steadily on her, now, finding nothing better
to do than obey her first suggestion and go to bed,
took her hand before going, put it to his lips — and
his glance, as he kissed her hand, brought the tears,
again, to Valerie's eyes-~dnd said: "Damn good
ness."

XXIX

>MOGEN was, indeed, crowned and ra
diant. And, safe on her eminence, re
covered from the breathlessness of her
rather unbecoming vigorous ascent, she
found her old serenity, her old benign-
safely enfolded her once more. In looking
down upon the dusty lowlands, where she had been
blind and bitter, she could afford to smile over her
self, even to shake her head a little over the vehe
mence of her own fear and courage. It was to have
lacked faith, to have lacked wisdom, the showing
of such vehemence; yet, who knew, without it, per
haps, she might not have escaped the nets that had
been laid for her feet, for Basil's feet, too, his strong
and simple nature making him helpless before sly
ambushes. Jack, in declaring himself her enemy,
had effectually killed the last faint wailing that had
so piteously, so magnanimously, sounded on for him
in her heart. He had, by his trickster's dexterity,
proved to her, if she needed proof, that she had
chosen the higher. A man who could so stoop— to
lies — was not the man for her. To say nothing of
his iniquity, his folly was apparent. For Jack had
behaved like a fool, he must see that himself, in his
espousal of a lost cause.

372

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 373

Jack as delinquent stood plain, and she would ac
cuse no one else. In the bottom of Imogen's heart
lingered, however, the suspicion that only when her
mother had seen the cause as lost, the contest as use
less, had she hastily assumed the dignified attitude
that, for the dizzy, moonlit moment, had, so hu-
miliatingly, sealed her, Imogen, into the magic bot
tle. Imogen suspected that she had n't been so
wrong, nor her mother so magnanimous as had then
appeared, and this secret suspicion made it the easier
for her to accept the seeming, since to do that was
to show herself anybody's equal in magnanimity.
She was quite sure that her mother, in her shallow
way, had cared for Basil, and not at all sure that she
had relinquished her hope at the first symptom of
his change of heart. But, though one could n't
but feel stern at the thought, one could n't, also, re
press something of pity for the miscalculation of the
defeated love. To feel pity, moreover, was to show
herself anybody's equal in heart; — Jack's accusa
tions rankled.

Yes; considering all things, and in spite of the
things that, she must always suspect, were hidden,
her mother had behaved extremely well.

"And above all," Imogen thought, summing it up
in terms at once generous and apt, "she has be
haved like the gentlewoman that she is. With all
her littlenesses, all her lacks, mama is essentially
that." And the sweetest moments of self -justifica
tion were those in which her heart really ached a lit
tle for "poor mama," moments in which she won
dered whether the love that had come to her, in her

374 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

great sorrow, high among the pine woods, had ever
been her mother's to lose. The wonder made her
doubly secure and her mother really piteous.

It was easy, her heart stayed on such heights, to
suffer very tolerantly the little stings that flew up
to her from the buzzing, startled world. Jack she
did not see again, until the day of her wedding, only
a month later, and then his face, showing vaguely
among the shimmering crowd, seemed but an empty
mask of the past. Jack departed early on the morn
ing after her betrothal, and it was only lesser won
ders that she had to face. Mary's was the one that
teased most, and Imogen might have felt some irri
tation had that not now been so inappropriate a sen
sation, before Mary's stare, a stare that seemed to
resume and take in, in the moment of stupefaction,
a world of new impressions. The memory of Mary
staring, with her hair done in a new and becoming
way, was to remain for Imogen as a symbol of the
vexatious and altered, perhaps the corrupted life,
that she was, after all, leaving for good in leaving
her native land.

"Sir Basil!— You are going to marry Sir Basil,
Imogen!" said Mary.

"Yes, dear. Does that surprise you? Have n't
you, really, seen it coming?— We fancied that every
one must be guessing, while we were finding it out
for ourselves," Imogen answered, ever so gently.
"No, I never saw it, never dreamed of it."
"It seemed so impossible? Why, Mary dear?"
"I don't know;— he is so much older;— he is n't
an American;— you won't live in your own coun-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 375

try;— I never imagined you marrying anyone but
an American."

The deepest wonder, Imogen knew it very well,
was the one she could not express:— I thought that
he was in love with your mother.

Imogen smiled over the simplicity of the spoken
surprises. ' ' I don 't think that the question of years
separates people so at one as Basil and I," she said.
"You would find how little such things meant, Mary
mine, if your calm little New England heart ever
came to know what a great love is. As for my coun
try, my country will be my husband's country, but
that will not make me love my old home the less,
nor make me forget all the things that life has
taught me here, any more than I shall be the less
myself for being a bigger and better self as his
wife." And Imogen looked so uplifted in saying it
that poor, bewildered Mary felt that Mrs. Upton,
after all, was right, one could n't tell where right-
ness was. Such love as Imogen's could n't be
wrong. All the same, she was not sorry that Imo
gen, all transfigured as she undoubtedly was, should
be going very far away. Mary did not feel happy
with Imogen any longer.

Rose took the tidings in a very unpleasant man
ner; but then Rose did n't count; in any circum
stances her effrontery went without saying. One
simply looked over it, as in this case, when it took
the form of an absolute silence, a white, smiling si
lence.

Oddly enough, from the extreme of Rose's anger,
came Eddy's chance. She did n't tell Eddy that

376 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

she saw his mother as robbed and that, in silence, her
heart bled for her; but she did say to him, several
days after Imogen's announcement, that, yes, she
would.

' ' I know that I should be bound to take you some
day, and I 'd rather do it just now when your
mother has quite enough bothers to see to without
having your anxieties on her mind ! I 11 never un
derstand anyone so well as I do you, or quarrel with
anyone so comfortably ;— and besides," Rose added
with characteristic impertinence, "the truth is, my
dear, that I want to be your mother's daughter.
It 's that that has done it. I want to show
her how nice a daughter can be to her. I want to
take Imogen's place. I '11 be an extremely bad
wife, Eddy, but a good daughter-in-law. I adore
your mother so much that for her sake I 11 put up
with you."

Eddy said that she might adore any one as much
as she liked so long as she allowed him to put up
with her for a lifetime. They did understand each
other, these two, and Valerie, though a little
troubled by the something hard and bright in their
warring courtship, something that, she feared, would
make their path, though always illuminated, often
rough, could welcome her new daughter with real
gladness.

"I know that you 11 never care for me, as I do
for you," said Rose, "and that you will often scold
me; but your scoldings will be my religion. Don't
spare them. You are my ideal, you know."

This speech, made in her presence, was, Imogen

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 8-77

knew, intended as a cut at herself. She heard it
serenely. But Rose was more vexatious than Mary
in that she was n't leaving her behind. Rose was
already sparring with Eddy as to when he would
take her over to England for a season of hunting.
Eddy firmly held himself before her as a poor man,
and when Rose dangled her own wealth before him
remarked that she could, of course, go without him,
if she liked. It was evident, in spite of sparring
and hardness, that Rose would n't like at all; and
evident, too, that Eddy would often be wheedled into
a costly holiday. Imogen had to foresee a future of
tolerance toward Rose. Their worlds would not do
more than merge here and there.

Imogen had, already, very distinct ideas as to her
new world. It hovered as important and political;
the business of Rose's world would be its relaxation
only. For Imogen would never change colors, and
her frown for mere fashion would be as sad as ever.
She was not to change, she was only to intensify, to
become "bigger and better." And this essential
stability was not contradicted by the fact that, in
one or two instances, she found herself developing.
She was glad, and in the presence of Mrs. Wake,
gravely to renounce past errors as to the English
people. Since coming to know Basil, typical of his
race, its flower, as he was, she had come to see how
far deeper in many respects, how far more evolved
that English character was than their own,—
"their," now, signifying "your." "You really
saw that before I did, dear Mrs. Wake," said
Imogen.

378 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Already Imogen identified herself with her future
husband so that the defects of the younger civiliza
tion seemed no longer her affair, except in so far as
her understanding of them, her love of her dear
country, and her new enlightenments, made her the
more eager to help. And then they were all of the
same race; she was very insistent on that; it was
merely that the branch to which she now belonged
was a "bigger and better branch." Imogen was
none the less a good American for becoming so de
voutly English. From her knowledge of the
younger, more ardent, civilization, her long training
in its noblest school, she could help the old in many
ways. England, in these respects, was like her Basil,
before she had wakened him. Imogen felt that
England, too, needed her. And there was undoubt
edly a satisfaction in flashing that new world of
hers, so large, so in need of her,— in flashing it, like
a bright, and, it was to be hoped, a somewhat daz
zling object, before the vexatiously imperturbable
eyes of Mrs. "Wake. Mrs. Wake's dry smile of con
gratulation had been almost as unpleasant as Rose's
silence.

From Miss Bocock there was neither smile, nor
sting, nor silence to endure. Miss Bocock had sus
pected nothing, either on the mother's side or on the
daughter's, and took the announcement very plac
idly. "Indeed. Really. How very nice. Ac
cept my congratulations," were her comments.
Imogen at once asked her to spend a week-end at
Thremdon Hall next Spring, and Miss Bocock in
just the same way said: "Thanks. That will be

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 379

very nice. I 've never stayed there. ' ' There was
still a subtle irritation in the fact that while Miss
Bocock now accepted her, in the order of things, as
one of the "county people," as the gracious mis
tress of Thremdon Hall, as very much above a coun
try doctor's family, she did n't seem to regard her
with any more interest or respect as an individual.

These, after all, were the superficialities of the
situation ; its deeper aspects were, Imogen felt, as yet
unfaced. Her mother seemed quite content to let
Imogen's silence stand for apology and retractation,
quite willing to go on, for the little further that
they had to go together, in an ambiguous relation.
This was, indeed, Imogen felt, her mother 's strength ;
she could, apparently, put up with any amount of
ambiguity and probably looked upon it as an essen
tial part of life. Perhaps, and here Imogen was
conscious of a twinge of anxiety, she put up with
it so quietly because she did n't recognize it in her
self, in her own motives and actions; and this
thought teased at Imogen until she determined that
she must stand forth in the light and show her
mother that she, too, was self-assured and she, too,
magnanimous.

She armed herself for the task by a little talk with
Sir Basil, the nearest approach they ever allowed
themselves to the delicate complexities in which they
had come to recognize each other and out of which,
to a certain extent, they had had to fight their way
to the present harmony. She was with him, again,
among the laurels, a favorite place with them, and
Imogen sat on her former ledge of sunny rock and

380 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Sir Basil was extended beside her on the moss. She
had been reading Emerson to him, and when the es
say was finished and she had talked to him a little
about the "over-soul,"— dear Basil's recollections of
metaphysics were very confused, — she presently
said to him, letting her hand slide into his while she
spoke: — "Basil, dearest, — I want to ask you some
thing, and you must answer very truly, for you need
never fear that I would flinch from any truth. Tell
me,— did you ever,— ever care for mama?"

Sir Basil, his hat tilted over his eyes, grew very
red and looked down at the moss for some moments
without replying.

"Of course I know that, in some sense, you did
care," said Imogen, a faint tremble in her voice,
a tremble that, in its sweet acquiescence to some
thing that was hurting her, touched him infinitely.
"I know, too, that there are loves and loves. I
know that anything you may have felt for mama is
as different from what you feel for me as lamp
light is from daylight. I won't speak of it, ever,
again, dear Basil ; but for this once let me see
clearly what was in your past."

"I did care for her," Sir Basil jerked out at
that;— "quite tremendously, until I saw you. She
will always be a dear friend, one of the dearest, most
charming people I 've ever known. And, no, it
was n't like lamplight, you know";— something in
that analogy was so hurting Sir Basil that it made
him, for a moment, forget his darling's hurt;— "that
was n't it. Though, it 's quite true, you 're like
daylight."

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 381

"And — and— she?" — Imogen accepted the re
statement, though her voice trembled a little more.

He now looked up at her, a clear, blue ray from
his honest eyes. ""Well, there, you know, it has
been a relief. I could never tell, in the past; she
showed me nothing, except that friendship ; but since
she has been free, since I 've seen her over here,
she has shown me quite clearly, that it was, on her
side, only that."

Imogen was silent for a long time. She did n't
"know" at all. And there was a great deal to ac
cept; more, oddly enough, than she had ever faced.
She had always believed that it had been like lamp
light to daylight. But, whatever it had been, the
day had conquered it. And how dear, how noble of
her lover to show, so unfalteringly, his loyalty to
the past. It was with a sigh made up of many
satisfactions that she said at last: — "Dear mama;
—I am so glad that I took nothing she cared for
from her."

It was on that afternoon that she found her time
for ' ' standing forth in the light ' ' before her mother.

She did n 't want it to be indoors ; she felt, vaguely,
that four walls would make them too intimate, as it
were ; shut them into their mutual consciousness too
closely. So that when she saw her mother, after
tea, watering and gathering her flowers at the edge
of the wood, she went out to her, across the grass,
sweet and mild in the long white dress that she had
worn since joy had come to her.

She wished to be veiy direct, very simple, very
sweet.

382 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

"Mama darling," she said, standing there be
side her while Valerie, after a quiet glance up at her,
continued to cut her roses;— "I want to say some
thing to you. This seems such a beautiful time to
say deep, grave things in, does n't it, this late af
ternoon hour? I 've wanted to say it since the
other night when, through poor Jack's folly of re
venge and blindness, we were all put into such an
ugly muddle, at such ugly cross-purposes." She
paused here and Valerie, giving neither assent nor
negation, said: "Yes, Imogen?"

"I want to say to you that I am sorry, mama
dear";— Imogen spoke gravely and with empha
sis; — "sorry, in the first place, that I should so have
misjudged you as to imagine that— at your time of
life and after your sobering experience of life — you
were involved in a love affair. I see, now, what a
wrong that was to do to you — to your dignity, your
sense of right and fitness. And I 'm sorrier that I
should have thought you capable of seconding Jack's
attempts to keep from me a love that had drawn to
me as a magnet to the north. The first mistake led
to the second. I had heard your friends conjectur
ing as to your feeling for Basil, and the pain of sus
pecting that of you — my father's new-made widow —
led me astray. I think that in any great new ex
perience one's whole nature is perhaps a little off-
balance, confused. I had suffered so much, in so
many ways;— his death ;— Jack's unworthiness;—
this fear for you; — and then, in these last days, for
what you know, mama, for him, because of him —
my father, a suffering that no joy will ever efface,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 383

that I was made, I think, for a little time, a stranger
to myself. And then came love — wonderful love —
and it shook my nature to its depths. I was daz
zled, torn, tempest-tossed;— I did not see clearly.
Let that be my excuse. ' '

Valerie still stopped over her roses, her fingers
delicately, accurately busy, and her face, under the
broad brim of her hat, hidden.

Again Imogen paused, the rhythm of her words,
like an echo of his voice in her own, bringing a sud
den sharp, sweet, reminiscence of her father, so that
the tears had risen to her eyes in hearing herself.
And again, for all reply, her mother once more said
only: "Yes, Imogen."

It was not the reply she had expected, not the re
ply that she had a right to expect, and, even out
there, with the flowers, so impersonally lovely, about
them, the late radiance softly bathing them, as if in
rays of forgiveness and mild pity, even with the
tears, evidences of sorrow and magnanimity, in her
eyes, Imogen felt a little at a loss, a little confused.

"That is, all, mama," she said; — "just that I
am sorry, and that I want you to feel, in spite of all
the sad, the tragic things that there have been be
tween us, that my deep love for you is there, and that
you must trust it always."

And now there was another silence. Valerie
stooping to her flowers, mysterious, ambiguous in
deed, in her shadow, her silence.

Imogen, for all the glory of her mood, felt a thrill
of anger, and the reminiscence that came to her now
was of her father's pain, his familiar pain, for such

384 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

shadows, such silences, such blights cast upon his
highest impulses. "I hope, mama, that you will
always trust my love," she said, mastering the rising
of her resentment.

And once more came the monotonous answer, but
given this time with a new note:— "Yes, Imogen,"
her mother replied, "you may always trust my
love."

She rose at that, and her eyes passed swiftly across
her daughter's face, swiftly and calmly. She was a
little flushed, but that might have been from the
long bending over the flowers, and if it was a jug
gling dexterity that she used, she had used it indeed
so dexterously that it seemed impossible to say any
thing more. Imogen could find no words in which
to set the turned tables straight.

She had imagined their little scene ending very
beautifully in a grave embrace and kiss ; but no op
portunity was given her for this final demonstration
of her spirit of charity. Her mother gathered up
her scissors, her watering-pot, her trowel, and hand
ing Imogen the filled basket of roses said, "Will
you carry these for me, my dear ? ' '

The tone of quiet, everyday kindness dispelled all
glory, and set a lower standard. Here, at this place,
very much on the earth, Imogen would always find
her, it seemed to say. It said nothing else.

Yet Imogen knew, as she walked back beside her
mother, knew quite as well as if her mother had
spoken the words, that her proffered love had not
been trusted, that she had been penetrated, judged,
and, in some irresistible way, a way that brought no

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 385

punishment and no reproof, nor even any lessening
of affection, condemned. Her mother still loved her,
that was the helpless conviction that settled upon
her ; but it was as a child, not as a personality, that
she was loved, — very much as Miss Bocock respected
her as the mistress of Thremdon Hall and not at all
on her own account ; but her mother, too, for all her
quiet, and all her kindness, thought her " self-cen
tered, self-righteous, cold-hearted," and — Imogen, in
a sharp pang of insight, saw it all— because of that
would not attempt any soul-stirring appeal or ar
raignment. She knew too well with what arms of
spiritual assurance she would be met.

It was in silence, while they walked side by side,
the basket of roses between them, that Imogen
fiercely seized these arms, fiercely parried the un-
uttered arraignment, and, more fiercely, the unut-
tered love.

She could claim no verbal victory, she had had to
endure no verbal defeat ; it was she herself who had
forced this issue upon a situation that her mother
would have been content to leave undefined. Her
mother would never fix blame; her mother would
never humiliate ; but, she had found it to her own
cost,— though the cost was as light as her mother
could make it — she would not consent to be placed
where Imogen had wished to place her. Let it be
so, then, let it end on this note of seeming harmony
and of silent discord; it was her mother's act, not
her own. Truth was in her and had made once more
its appeal ; once more deep had called to deep only
to find shallowness. For spiritual shallowness there

25

386 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

must be where an appeal such as hers could be so
misunderstood and so rejected.

She was angry, sore, vindictive, though her sharp
insight did not reach so far as to tell her this ; it did,
however, tell her that she was wounded to the quick.
But the final refuge was in the thought that she was
soon to leave such judgments and such loves behind
her for ever.

T was on a late October day that Jack
Pennington rode over the hills to
Valerie's summer home.

Two months were gone since Imo
gen's reporter-haunted nuptials had
been celebrated in the bland little country church
that raised its white steeple from the woodlands.
Jack had been present at them ; decency had made
that necessary, and a certain grimness in his aspect
was easily to be interpreted in a dismal, defeated
rival. It was as such, he knew, that he was seen
there.

It had been a funny wedding, — to apply none of
the other terms that lay deeper in him. In watch
ing it from the white-wreathed chancel he had
thought of Valerie 's summing-up : ' ' Imogen is one
of the people who make the world go round." The
world in every phase had been there, from the Brit
ish ambassador and the Langleys to the East Side
club girls— brought up from New York in the special
train— and a flourishing consignment of cripples and
nurses. Here and there in her path Imogen might
meet the blankness of a Miss Bocock, the irony of a

387

388 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Mrs. Wake, a disillusion like Mary's, an insight like
his own ; but the great world, in its aspect of power
and simplicity, would be with her always. He had
realized as never before Imogen's capacity, when he
saw the cohorts of her friends and followers over
flow the church.

She had been a fitting center to it all ; though the
center, for Jack, was Valerie, exquisite, mildly ra
diant, not a hint on her of dispossession or of doom ;
but Imogen, white and rapt and grave, had looked
almost as wonderful as on the day when she had
first dawned upon Sir Basil's vision.

Jack, watching her uplifted profile as she stood
at the altar-rail, found himself trivially, spitefully,
irrelevantly murmuring: — "Her nose is too small."
And yet she looked more than ever like a Botticelli
Madonna.

Rose and Eddy were to be married that winter in
New York, a gigantic opportunity for the news
papers, for already half the world seemed trooping
to the festivities. Afterward, with old-fashioned
Americanism, they would live in quite a little house
and try to forget about Rose's fortune until Eddy
made his.

Valerie was to have none of the bother of this
wedding. Mrs. Packer, a mournful, jeweled, faded
little beauty, was well fitted to cope with such emer
gencies. Her secretaries sat already with pens
poised.

Imogen's wedding had kept her mother working
like a galley-slave, so Rose told Jack, with the fa
miliarity that was now justifiable in one who was al-

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 389

most of the family, and that Eddy had told her,
with much disgust of demeanor, that its financing
had eaten pretty deeply into his mother's shrunken
means. Rose made no open denunciation; she, no
more than anyone else, could guess from Jack's si
lence what his feeling about Imogen might really
be. But she was sure that he was well over her,
and that, above all, he was one of the elect who saw
Mrs. Upton; she could allow herself a musing sur
vey of all that the mother had done for the daugh
ter, adding, and it was really with a wish for strict
justice: "Of course Imogen never had any idea of
money, and she '11 never realize what she cost."
In another and a deeper sense it might be that that
was the kindest as well as the truest thing to say of
Imogen.

Since the wedding he knew that Valerie had been
quietly at the little house among the hills, alone for
the most part, though Mrs. Wake was often with
her and the Pakenhams had paid her a visit on their
way back to England. Now Mrs. Wake was gone
back to New York, and her own departure was to
take place in a few days. Jack, spending a week
end with friends not beyond riding distance, felt
that he must see her again in the surroundings where
he had come to know her so well and to know him
self as so changed.

He rode over the crests of hills in the flaming,
aromatic woods. The fallen leaves paved his way
with gold. In the deep distances, before him a still,
blue haze, like the bloom on ripe grape-clusters, lay
over the purples of the lower ranges. Above, about,

390 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

before him was the blue sky of the wonderful Ameri
can "fall," high, clear, crystalline. The air was
like an elixir. Jack's eyes were for all this beauty,
—"the vast, unconscious scenery of my land," the
line that drifted in his thoughts,— his own conscious
ness, taken up into his contemplation, seeming as
vast and as unperplexed. But under his calm, his
happy sadness, that, too, seemed a part of the day,
ran, like the inner echo to the air's intoxication,
a stream of deep, still excitement.

He did not think directly of Valerie, but vague
pictures passed, phantom-like, before his mind. He
saw her in her garden, gathering late flowers; he
saw her reading under the fringe of vine-leaves and
tendrils ; he saw her again in the wintry New York
of snow, sunlight, white, gold and blue, or smiling
down from the high-decked steamer against a sky
of frosty rose ; he saw her on all possible and ade
quate backgrounds of the land he so loved. But, —
oh, it was here that the under-current, the stream of
excitement seemed to rise, foaming, circling, sub
merging him, choking him, with tides of grief and
desolation,— seeing her, too, in that land she loved; —
not in the Surrey garden, no, no,— that was shut to
her for ever; — but in some other, some distant gar
den, high-walled, the pale gold and gray of an au
tumnal sunset over its purpling bricks, or on a
flower-dappled common in spring, or in spring
woods filled with wild hyacinths and primroses.
How he could see her, place her, over there, far, far
away, from his country— and from him.

It was, after the last sharp trot, the last leisurely

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 391

uphill canter, on the bordering, leaf-strewn grass of
the winding road, where the white walls and gray
roof of the little house showed among the trees, that
all the undercurrent seemed to center in a knot of
suffocating expectancy and pain.

And Valerie, while Jack so rode, so approached
her, was fulfilling one of his visions. She had spent
the afternoon in her garden, digging, planting,
"messing" as she expressed it, very happily among
her borders, where late flowers, purple and white
and gold, still bloomed. She was planning all sorts
of things for her garden, a row of double- cherry-
trees to stand at the edges of the woods and be
symbols of paradise in spring, with their deep upon
deep of miraculous white. Little almond-trees, too,
frail sprays of pink on a spring sky, and quince-
trees that would show in autumn among ample fo
liage the pale gold of their softly-furred fruit. She
wanted spring flowers to run back far into the
woods, the climbing roses and honeysuckle to make
summer delicious among the vines of the veranda.
The afternoon, full of such projects, passed pleas
antly, and when she came in and dressed for her
solitary tea, she felt pleasantly tired. She walked
up and down the drawing-room, its white walls
warm with the reflections cf outer sunlight, listen
ing vaguely to the long trail of her black tea-gown
behind her, looking vaguely from the open windows
at the purple distances set in their nearer waves of
flame.

At the end of the room, before the austere little
mantelpiece, she paused presently to look at herself

392 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

in the austere little mirror with its compartments of
old gilt; at herself, the illuminated white of the
room behind her reflection. A narrow crystal vase
mirrored itself beside her leaning arm, and its one
tall rose, set among green leaves and russet stems
and thorns, spread depths of color near her cheek.
Valerie's eyes went from her face to the rose. The
rose was fresh, glowing, perfect. Her face, lovely
still, was faded.

She stood there, leaning beside the flower, the
fingers of her supporting hand sunken deep in the
chestnut masses of her hair, and noted, gravely,
earnestly, the delicate signs and seals of stealing
age.

Never, never again would her face be like the
rose, young, fresh, perfect. And she herself was
no longer young ; in her heart she knew the stillness,
the droop, the peace— almost the peace— of softly-
falling petals.

How young she had been, how lovely, how full of
sweetness. That was the thought that pierced her
suddenly, the thought of wasted sweetness, unre
corded beauty, unnoted, unloved, all to go, to pass
away for ever. It seemed hardly for herself she
grieved, but for the doom of all youth and loveli
ness; for the fleeting, the impermanence of all life.
The vision of herself passed to a vision of the other
roses, the drooping, the doomed, scattering their
petals in the chill breeze of coming winter.

"Poor things," was her thought,— her own self-
pity had part only in its inclusiveness,— "summer is
over for all of us."

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 393

And with the thought, girlishly, still girlishly,
she hid her face upon her arms as she stood there,
murmuring:— "Ah, I hate, I hate getting old."

A step at the door roused her. She turned to
see Jack entering.

Jack looked very nice in the tans and russets of
his riding-tweeds and gaiters. The chill air had
brought a clear color to his cheeks ; the pale gold
of his hair, — one unruly lock, as usual, over-long,
lying across his forehead,— shone like sunlight; his
gray eyes looked as deep and limpid as a mountain
pool.

Valerie was very, very glad to see him. He em
bodied the elixir, the color, the freshness of the
world to-day : and oh how young — how young — how
fortunately, beautifully young he looked; — that was
the thought that met him from the contrast of the
mirror.

She gave him her hands in welcome, and they sat
down near a window where the sunlight fell upon
them and the breeze blew in upon them, she on a
little sofa, among chintz cushions, he on a low chair
beside her; and while they talked, that excitement,
that pain and expectancy grew in Jack.

The summer was over and, soon, it must be, she
would go. With a wave of sadness that sucked him
back and swept him forward in a long, sure ache,
came the knowledge, deeper than before, of his own
desolation. But, sitting there beside her in the Oc
tober sunlight; feeling, with the instinct, so quick,
so sensitive in him, that it was in sadness he had
found her, the desolation was n't so much for him-

394 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

self as for her, what she represented and stood for.
He, too, seeing her face with the blooming rose be
side it, had known her piercing thought.

She was going ; but in other senses, too. She had
begun to go; and all the sacrifices, the relinquish-
ments, the acceptances of the summer, were the first
steps of departure. She had done with things and
he, wrho had not yet done with them, was left
behind. Already the signs of distance were
upon her — he saw them as she had seen them —
her distance from the world of youth, of hope, of
effort.

A thin veil, like the sad-sweet haze over the pur
pling hills, seemed to waver between them ; the veil
that, for all its melting elusiveness, parts implaca
bly one generation from another. Its dimness
seemed to rest on her bright hair and to hover in her
bright eyes; to soften, as with a faint melancholy,
the brightness of her smile. And it was as if he
saw her, with a little sigh, unclasp her hands, that
had clung to what she fancied to be still her share
of life,— unclasp her hands, look round her with a
slight amaze at the changed season where she found
herself, and, after the soundless pause of recogni
tion, bend her head consentingly to the quiet, ob
literating snows of age. And once more his own
change, his own initiation to subtler standards, was
marked by the fact that when the old, ethical self,
still over-glib with its assurances, tried to urge upon
him that all was for the best in a wonderful world,
ventured to murmur an axiom or so as to the grace,
the dignity, the added spiritual significance of old

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 395

age, the new self, awakened to tragedy, turned
angry eyes upon that vision of the rose in the dev
astated garden, and once more muttered, in silence:
-."Damn!"

They had talked of the past and of the coming
marriage, very superficially, in their outer aspects;
they had talked of his summer wanderings and of
the Pakenhams' visit to Vermont. She had given
him tea and she had told him of her plans for the
winter;— she had given up the New York house, and
had taken a little flat near Mrs. Wake's, that she
was going to move to in a few days from now. And
Jack said at last, feeling that with the words he
dived from shallows into deeps: — " And— when are
you going back?— back to England?"

"Going back?" — She repeated his words with
vagueness.

"Yes; to where you 've always liked to live."

"Yes; I liked living there," said Valerie, still
with vagueness in her contemplative "yes."

"And still like it."

She seemed to consider. "Things have changed,
you know. It was change I used to want, I looked
for it, perhaps mistakenly. Now it has come of
itself. And I feel a great unwillingness to move
on again."

The poignant vision of something bruised,
dimmed, listless, was with him, and it was odd to
hear himself urging:— "But in the meantime, you,
too, have changed. The whole thing over here, the
thing we so care for, is n't yours. You don't really
care about it much, if at all. It does n't really

396 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

please you. It gives you with effort what you can
get with ease, over there, and it must jar on you,
often. We are young; crude; all the over-obvious
things that are always said of us; our enthusiasms
are too facile ; our standards of achievement, in the
things you care for, rather second-rate ; oh, you
know well enough what I mean. We are not crystal
lized yet into a shape that 's really comfortable for
a person like you: — perhaps we never shall be; per
haps I hope that we never shall be. So why
should n't you go to a place where you can have all
the things you like?"

She listened to him in silence, with, at the end,
a slight smile for the exactitude of his: "Perhaps I
hope that we never shall be;"— -and she paused now
as if his portrayal of her own wants required
consideration. "Perhaps," she said at length,
"perhaps I never cared so much about all those
things."

"Oh, but you do," said Jack with conviction.

"You mean, I suppose, all the things people over
here go away so much to get. No, I don't think
so. It was never really that. I don't think"— and
she seemed to be thinking it out for herself as well
as for him — "that I 've ever been so conscious of
standards —crystallizations— the relative values and
forms of things. What I wanted was freedom. Not
that I was ever oppressed or ill-treated, far from
it;— but I was too— uncomfortable. I was like a
bird forced to live like a fish, or perhaps we had
better say, like a fish forced to live like a bird.
That was why I went. I could n't breathe. And,

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 397

yes, I like the life over there. It 's very easy and
gliding; it protects yon from jars; it gives you
beauty for the asking; — here we have to make it as
a rule. I like the people, too, and their uncon
sciousness. One likes us, you know, Jack, for what
is conscious in us — and it 's so much that there 's
hardly a bit of us that is n't conscious. We know
our way all over ourselves, as it were, and can put
all of ourselves into the window if we want someone
else to know us. One often likes them for their un
consciousness, for all the things behind the window,
all the things they know nothing at all about, the
things that are instinctive, background things. It
makes a more peaceful feeling. One can wander
about dim rooms, as it were, and rest in them; one
does n't have to recognize, and respond so much.
Yes, I shall miss it all, in a great many ways. But
I like it here, too. For one thing, there is a great
deal more to do."

Jack, in some bewilderment, was grasping at
clues. One was that, as he had long ago learned of
her, she was incapable of phrases, even when they
were sincere, incapable of dramatizing herself, even
if her situation lent itself to tragic interpretations.
Uncomfortable?— was that all that she found to say
of her life, her suffocating life, among the fishes?
She could put it aside with that. And as for the
rest, he realized suddenly, with a new illumination —
at what a late date it was for him to reach it; he,
who had thought that he knew her so well!— that
she cared less, in reality, for all those "things" lack
ing in the life of her native land than the bulk of

398 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

her conscious, anxious countrymen. Cared not
enough, his old self of judgment and moral appraise
ment would have pronounced. She was n't intel
lectual, nor was she esthetic; that was the funny
part of it, about a person whose whole being dif
fused a sense of completeness that was like a per
fume. Art, culture, a complicated social life, be
ing on the top of things, as it were, were not the ob
jects of her concentration. It was indeed her in
difference to them, her independence of them, that
made her, for his wider consciousness, oddly un-
American.

In the midst of bewilderment and illumination
one thing stood clear, a trembling joy; he had to
make assurance doubly sure. "If you are not go
ing away, what will you do?"

"I don't know";— he would, once, have rebuked
the smile with which she said it as indolent; — "I
was n't thinking of anything definite, for myself.
I '11 watch other people do — you, for instance, Jack.
I shall spend most of my time here in the country ;
New York is so expensive; I shall garden— wait till
you see what I make of this in a few years' time; I
shall look after Rose and Eddy— at a tactful
distance."

"But your wider life? Your many friends, over
there?" Jack still protested, fearing that he saw
more clearly than she to what a widow with a tiny,
crippled fortune was consigning herself in this coun
try of the young and striving. "You need gaiety,
brilliancy, big, bright vistas." It was strange to
hear himself urging his thought for her against that

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 399

inner throb. Again she gave him her grave, brief
smile. "You forget, Jack, that I 'm— cured. I 'm
quite old enough not to mind giving up."

The warm, consoling assurance was with him, of
her presence near his life ; but under it the excite
ment, the pain, had so risen that he wondered if she
did not read them in his eyes.

The evening was growing late ; the sky had turned
to a pale, translucent gold, streaked, over the hori
zon, by thin, cold, lilac-colored clouds. He must
go, leaving her there, alone, and, in so doing, he
would leave something else behind him forever. For
it was now, as the veil fell upon her, as the evening
fell over the wide earth, it was now or never that
he could receive the last illumination. He hardly
saw clearly what that might be; it wavered like a
hovering light behind the mist.

He rose and walked up and down the room a lit
tle ; pausing to look from the windows at the golden
sky; pausing to look, now and then, at her, sitting
there in her long, black dress, vaguely shadowed on
the outer light, smiling, tranquil, yet sad, so sad.

"So, our summer is at an end," he said, turning
at last from the window. "The air has a frosty
tang already. 1 suppose I must be off. I shall
not see you again until New York. I 'm glad— I 'm
glad that you are to be there ' ' ; and now he stam
mered suddenly, a little— "more glad than I can
say."

"Thanks, Jack," she answered, her eyes fondly
dwelling on him. "You are one of the things I
would not like to leave."

400 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

Again he walked up and down, and seemed to
hear the steady flow of that still, deep excitement.
Why, above it, should he say silly, meaningless
words, that were like a bridge thrown over it to lead
him from her ?

"I want to tell you one thing, just one, before
I go, " he said. He knew that, with his sudden reso
lution, his voice had changed and, to quiet himself,
he stood before her and put both hands on the back
of a chair that was between them. He could n't go
on building that bridge. He must dare something,
even if something else he must not dare — unless, un
less she let him. "I must tell you that you are the
most enchanting person I have ever known."

She looked at him quietly, though she was star
tled, not quite understanding, and she said a little
sadly: "Only that, Jack?"

"Yes, only that, for you, because you don't need
the trite, obvious labels that one affixes to other peo
ple. You don't need me to say that you are good
or true or brave ;— it 's like a delicate seal that com
prises and expresses everything, — the trite things
and the strange, lovely things— when I say that you
are enchanting." He held his mind, so conscious,
under the words, of what he must not say, to the in
tellectual preoccupation of making her see, at all
events, just what the words he could say meant.

But as his voice rang, tense, vibrant as a tightened
cord in the still room, as his eyes sank into hers,
Valerie felt in her own dying youth the sudden echo
to all he dared not say.

She had never seen, quick as she was to see the

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 401

meaning behind words and looks. She suspected
that he, also, had never seen it clearly till now.

Other claims had dropped from them; the world
was gone ; they were alone, his eyes on hers ; and be
tween them was the magic of life.

Yes, she had it still, the gift, the compelling
charm. His eyes in their young strength and fear
and adoration called to her life, and with a touch,
a look, she could bring to it this renewal and this
solace. And, behind her sorrow, her veil, her re-
linquishment, Valerie was deeply thrilled.

The thrill went through her, but even while she
knew it, it hardly moved her. No; the relinquish-
ment had been too deep. She had lost forever, in
losing the other. That had been to turn her back on
life, or, rather, to see it turn its back on her, for
ever. Not without an ugly crash of inner, twisted
discord could she step once more from the place of
snow, or hold out her hand to love.

All his life was before him, but for her — ; for her
It was finished. And as she mastered the thrill, as
she turned from the vision of what his eyes besought
and promised, a flow of pity, pity for his youth and
pain and for all the long way he was yet to go, filled
her, bringing peace, even while the sweetness of the
unsought, undreamed of offering made her smile
again, a trembling smile.

' ' Dear Jack, thank you, ' ' she said.

Suddenly, before her smile, her look, he flushed
deeply, taking from her eyes what his own full
meaning had been. Already it was in the past, the
still-born hope ; it was dead before he gazed upon it ;

26

402 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

but he must hear the death-warrant from her lips,
it was not enough to see it, so gentle, so pitiful, so
loving, in her eyes, and he heard himself stammer
ing:— "You— you have n't anything else you can
say to me ? "

She had found her answer in a moment, and now
indeed she was at the helm, steering them both past
white shores, set in such depths of magical blue,
white shores where sirens sang. Never could they
land there, never listen to the song. And already she
seemed to hear it, as if from a far distance, ringing,
sharp and strange with the swiftness of their flight,
as she replied : ' ' Nothing else, dear Jack, except that
I wish you were my son."

The enchanted island had sunk below the hori
zon. They were landed, and on the safest, sanest,
shores. She knew that she had achieved her own
place, and that from it, secure, above him, the veil
between them, her smile was the smile of motherhood.
To smile so was to put before him finally the fact
that her enchantment contradicted and helplessly
lured him to forget. She would never forget it now,
nor could he. She was Imogen's mother, and she
was old enough to be his.

From her smile, her eyes, common-sense flooded
Jack, kind, yet stinging, too, savoring of a rescue
from some hidden danger.— not his— not his— his
was none of the common-sense, — but hers. He might,
had she let him, have so dislocated her life.

He was scarlet, stammering. He knew that he
hid nothing from her now, that he did n't want or
need to hide anything. Those benign, maternal eyes

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 403

would understand. And he smiled, too, but also
with a trembling smile, as he reached out to her
hand, holding it tightly and saying, gazing at her: —
' ' I love you so. ' '

Her hand held his, in farewell now, but her look
up at him promised everything, everything for the
future,— except the one now shrouded thing. "And
I love you, dear Jack," she said. "You have taken
the place of— almost everything."

And then, for she saw the tears in his eyes, and
knew that his heart was bleeding, not for himself
alone, she rose and took his head between her hands,
and, like a mother, kissed him above his eyes.

WHEN he had left her,— and they said no further
word, — Valerie did not again relapse into a de
spondent attitude.

The sky was like a deep rose, soft, dim, dying, and
the color of the afterglow filled the room.

Standing at the window she breathed in the keen,
sweet air, and looked from the dying day down to
her garden.

She had watched Jack disappear among the trees,
waving to him, and her heart followed his aching
heart with comprehending pity. But, from her con
quest of the thrill, a clear, contemplative insight
was left with her, so that, looking out over the lives
she was to watch, she felt herself, for all her sadness,
a merry, if a serious fate, mingling the threads of
others' fortunes with a benignant hand.

Imogen's threads had snapped off very sharply.
Imogen would be the better pleased that the Surrey

404 A FOUNTAIN SEALED

cottage should know her no more. The pang for
the wrecking of all maternal hope passed strangely
into a deeper pang for all that the Surrey cot
tage stood for in her life, all the things that she
had left to come to Imogen. She remembered.
And, for a moment, the old vortex of whirling
anguish almost engulfed her. Only long years
could deaden the pang of that parting. She would
not dwell on that. Eddy and Rose; to turn to
them was to feel almost gay. Jack and Mary; —
yes, on these last names her thoughts lingered and
her gaze for them held tender presages. That
must be.

Jack would not know how her maternal solicitude
was to encompass him and mold his way. If the
benignant fate saw clearly, Jack and Mary were to
marry. Strange that it should not be from any
thing of her own that the deepest call upon her fos
tering tenderness came. She was n't needed by
anything of her own. This was the tragedy of her
life that, more than youth passed and love re
nounced, seemed to drift snows upon her.

But, beyond the personal pang and failure, she
could look down at her garden and out at the quiet,
evening vistas. The very flowers seemed to smile
gentle promises to her, and to murmur that, after
all, rather than bitterness, failure was to bring
humble peace.

Leaning her head against the wrindow, where
in the breeze the curtain softly flapped, she looked
out at the tranquil twilight, contented to be sad.

A FOUNTAIN SEALED 405

"I will have friends with me," she said to her
self; "I will garden and learn a new language. I
will read a great many books." And, with a sense
of happy daring, not rebuked by reason, she could
add, thinking of the mingled threads:— "I will have
them often here to stay with me, and, perhaps, they
will let me spoil the babies."

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